Llewellyn Maclean is a numbers man. When he goes into a beef venture, he makes sure that the price per kilogram, kilogram per hectare and profit make sense. Farming extensively in the Queenstown/Sterkstroom district with registered and commercial Beefmasters on 3100ha (he owns two-thirds and hires one-third), he has applied an exacting table of data [...]
The Nguni cattle breed is facing a crisis in which the major feedlots in South Africa are either not accepting Nguni weaners or paying several rand less for them. Why is this happening and what is being done about it? In this feature we speak to Marli Stegmann - the President of the Nguni Cattle [...]
David Osborne, one of South Africa’s most successful agri businessmen, runs his agri group from his office on the Queenstown farm he calls home. The secret to his success: good people. […]
Dries and Minnie de Klerk produce fine, hardy Beefmasters at an altitude of between 1 883m and 1 950m in the Stormberg, with a severe winter climate and a four-month growing season. Heather Dugmore visited them. […]
The voice of the farmer and of permanent farm employees has largely been missing in the wage strikes and associated violence. What we have heard is hate-speech against farmers, broadcast by the media far too many times. […]
To maintain their vigour and reproductive power all grasses are dependent on being defoliated either by grazing and/or by the use of fire. Which is preferable – grazing or blazing or a combination of both? […]
Too much rest damages the veld and only intense livestock hoof action can restore vegetation and reverse the effects of desertification, a major cause of climate change. Four decades since he gave his first course on holistic farming in South Africa, holistic management pioneer Allan Savory returned to Graaff-Reinet for a three-day workshop. Heather Dugmore [...]
Johann Zietsman offers 25 years of sustainable cattle production to show South African cattle farmers how to double, triple or quadruple their cattle numbers while improving the quality of their veld. […]
MERINO SA President Julian Southey talks about the need to be adaptable and to change your farming practice from that of previous generations in order to rise to current economic challenges and benefit from the knowledge available today. […]
There is a modest white gravestone in the old cemetery in the Eastern Cape town of Middelburg. This is the resting place of John Sweet Distin Esquire, formerly of Tafelberg Hall, a farm with its own distinctive ‘table mountain’ on the outskirts of Middelburg. […]
