Photo: Lindi Botha
Dewald te Water will never be unsure about the word that sums up his farming career. His every story and sentence is strewn with the word ‘opportunity’. And although he is quick to relate that while some prospects turn out to be challenges rather than opportunities, he never shies away from venturing along unknown paths.
Dewald’s drive is relentless and it has paid off handsomely. His career is a story of blood, sweat and tears, scraping every cent together to capitalise on what he and his brother Billy always saw as ‘an opportunity’.
Today, the Te Water Group (TWG) has a robust agriculture and construction company, which includes cattle, maize, soya bean, silage, brick-making and equipment rental divisions.
Dewald is at the helm of the business, having had to take over the construction division after Billy died in November last year. He runs Te Water Boerdery on the farm Schurvekop, near Bethal in Mpumalanga.
Humble beginnings
Dewald grew up on a farm, but since Billy was the eldest and in line to take over the business, Dewald had to make his own way in life.
“After studying I went to work for another farmer. I didn’t really have a plan,” he says. “Two years into the job, with Billy farming on the family farm, he suggested that we pool our efforts and see if we could grow the farm from the 200ha of maize and the small sheep herd it had at the time.”
Dewald secured land in the area to rent, bought a second-hand tractor and went to work. After every harvest, the income was used to rent more land, and by 2002, the duo had 800ha under maize.
“We then had an opportunity to buy a TLB and a tipper lorry, so we ventured into doing contract work to improve cash flow. The coal industry was just getting started in Mpumalanga at that stage, so we grabbed the opportunity to transport coal.”
Although this division quickly expanded to nine lorries by reinvesting all income into buying additional vehicles, Dewald notes that transportation is not an easy industry.
“If transport is not in your nature, then it’s best left alone. After two years, we closed this division. The income we made, however, put us in a position to buy additional TLBs and tipper lorries, so we expanded into roadworks.”
At this point, Dewald and Billy decided to split responsibility between the agriculture and construction divisions, with Dewald taking on the former.
Between the hard work, the brothers also benefitted from good timing. When they purchased more land in 2002, property prices were around R2 500/ha.
“But the only land we could find to buy came at R6 000/ha. We took the plunge, even though we didn’t really know where the money to pay it back would come from. But then prices started rising rapidly and suddenly we sat with land assets that were valued at far more than we paid for them. This provided collateral for us to secure more financing and expand the business. We might never have had cash flow, but we had assets,” laughs Dewald.
To stimulate cash flow, the brothers bought a brick factory in 2006. “We really scraped the money together, borrowing from one division to pay for another, hoping cash would come in on time to pay off the loans. But we really didn’t want to miss any opportunities so we had to make it happen. By grace we survived.”
At this point, an opportunity arose to supply tar for roadworks in the area. “We tendered for the job, got it, but didn’t actually know where we would get the tar from. We placed an order with a nearby company, but three days later they declared bankruptcy. We had no choice but to erect our own facility, employing knowledgeable people.
“It was a gamble that paid off, making good money, but it was not a business we wanted to be in. But from these profits we could buy a herd of cattle and expand our brick factory, which boosted the business as a whole.”
Times were not always easy, but the steadfast dedication of the Te Water brothers paid off over the years. When conditions on the Highveld were difficult and other farmers sold their farms, the brothers bought the land, often working through the night so they could finish planting or harvesting on the additional land, even though they only had tractor capacity for half of it.
By 2012 they could erect a second brick factory and started doing civil work for Sasol, which was setting up shop in the area. In 2016, when Sasol stopped producing fertiliser mixes, the Te Waters grabbed the opportunity to fill the gap left in the market by erecting a mixing facility. Today, they are contracted by Constantia Kunsmis to mix fertilisers to the tune of 130 000t/year. “We never said no to an opportunity,” says Dewald.
The business steadily expanded to include earthworks to get maximum value from the fleet of implements they had – another way the brothers always ensured they put in the maximum amount of work to reap maximum rewards.
A silage division was added in 2021 to best benefit market conditions for maize.
Silage is a bulky business and can be difficult to handle, complicating commercial opportunities to sell it.
Dewald found a solution from a Norwegian company, Orkel, which developed technology to tightly wrap silage into bales of between 400kg and 900kg each. This not only makes storage and transport easier, but keeps the silage fresh and protected from the elements. Spotting another opportunity, Dewald acquired the rights to distribute the technology in South Africa.
The production of this high-quality silage, which is also exported, garnered Dewald a win in the 2022 Sanlam Agriculture National Silage Competition’s division for forage sorghum and oat silage. He also finished second in the competition’s maize division.
The success of TWG has benefits beyond that for Dewald and his family. He employs between 600 and 650 permanent workers across all the divisions, of which 20% are in the agriculture division, making the business an important contributor to the area’s economy.
Adding value
While the Te Water brothers had to juggle finances between divisions over the years as they expanded, cross-subsidising has never been a business practice. Each division needs to prove its value by being financially stable on its own.
“Divisions will lend money to each other when needed, but it must be paid back. Otherwise we’ll never know if we are winning. There is no sentimentality, and if something isn’t feasible, it’s scrapped.”
Adding value is a key focus of the agriculture division. Besides the silage, Dewald also produces popcorn, chips and breakfast cereals from his maize.
These facilities were erected in 2015: one turns regular maize kernels into popcorn (rather than requiring a popcorn cultivar), and an extruder facility makes the chips and cereals. All these products are packaged on the farm and distributed around the country.
Calculated risks
Dewald makes risk-taking sound easy, but he says every decision needs to be carefully weighed up in lieu of capacity.
“When deciding how to expand, or what opportunities to grab, you need to make sure you have the resources to back it up. Market research is crucial, as is having the right people with the right skills in place. There is always risk when you go into a new industry, but having a good business sense, and knowing how to wheel and deal, is important.”
Dewald notes that solid structures are a legacy his brother left behind. “Billy believed in getting the structure of a business right; having the right people in the right positions in the company. He trained people in their positions and they deliver quality work, which made it a lot easier for me to take over after his passing.”
He notes that having a broad base of resources also widens the scope for exploring new opportunities. Being able to make decisions timeously is another aspect he highlights.
“We are quick decision-makers and have short chains of command. The more corporate you become, the longer the decision-making process gets, which not only increases the risk but means you could miss the boat completely.”
After decades of expansion, Dewald has now reached a phase of consolidation where he fine-tunes the business and ensures it remains sustainable. “Billy had a big appetite for construction, and I had a big appetite for agriculture. When it came to grabbing opportunities, it was a bit like throwing petrol on a fire – we spurred each other on.
“Maybe we were too brave in many instances, but we always made it work. Over the past 15 years we expanded every single year – every cent we made was put back into the business.
“But we reached a time to start consolidating and managing the risk. This has been the focus over the past five years and will be the focus for the next few years to come. Going forward, I’m considering expanding the silage division, since it’s showing a lot of promise.”
There is no doubt that the agriculture sector has found itself in a more subdued environment recently, and the gains the Te Waters were able to make in their early years cannot be easily replicated. But new scenarios have simply meant that while Dewald’s focus has shifted, his optimism hasn’t waned.
For him, the biggest opportunity going forward will be to effectively manage the risks facing the entire sector, which includes weather and political volatility. This means splitting up the risks to ensure the whole house of cards does not take a tumble in a downturn.
“Creating the silage division is an example. At the beginning of the year the maize looked outstanding, so the profit per hectare I made on the silage was good. Then the drought took hold and the remaining maize withered, bringing poor returns. Being able to balance my income across two segments within the maize division meant that the drought had less of an effect on me.”
Having a full workshop on board is also part of Dewald’s strategy to manage risk and get the full value out of his fleet.
“The return on investment from buying big machinery is far less today than it was when we first started. In today’s market you can’t make money out of equipment if you don’t do your own maintenance and stretch the lifetime of the machine to nearly double. This means having a full maintenance plan in place, since its cheaper to maintain something than it is to fix it if it breaks down.”
The workshop ensures that 90% of all the work done on the fleet is done in-house. Dewald notes that arriving on site with dilapidated equipment is not a good advertisement of one’s services.
“We might not be the cheapest in the market, but we have minimal downtime. We also have enough machines to ensure that one can be easily swapped out if there are any problems. A client wants operators on site – not mechanics,” he quips.
It is this level of reliability that plays a big role in Dewald’s success. He believes that a good name will always ensure you have repeat business and remain sustainable.
@farmersweeklysa Dewald te Water, a farmer in Bethal Mpumalanga, shares more info about his Bovelder cattle. @Lindi Botha #FarmersWeeklySA #agriculturetiktok #agriwriterssa #farmeroftheyear #cattlebreed #cattlefarming #feedrations #cattlefeed #silage ♬ original sound – Farmer’s Weekly SA
