Rural insight

It is a little known fact that Orange Free State Boer families were once offered refuge during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in Lesotho, then Basutoland. The resentment of Boer fighters, who sacrificed everything in the war, towards returning refugees reverberates to this day.

Too many once-successful farms now lie fallow, so it’s a breath of fresh air to hear of an initiative that seeks to prevent this from happening, says Lloyd Phillips.

Grain SA/Absa Developing Grain Producer of the Year for 2013, Maurice Boki, is proof that age should never be considered a barrier to successful farming.

Sphiwe Machika, the 2013 DAFF Female Farm Worker of the Year, says working with the best team has brought the best out in her. Peter Mashala visited Sphiwe at the Rathabiseng Community Farming Project outside Pretoria.

As drought grips many parts of South Africa, it has again become clear how vulnerable rural communities are to weather extremes. Mike Burgess travelled through the southern Free State and northern Eastern Cape and reports on the dry conditions and devastating fires that have pushed communities to the limit.

In the last days of their independence in the highlands of the Eastern Cape, Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal, the Bushmen became stock thieves and integrated domestic livestock into their rock art and spiritual beliefs, writes Mike Burgess.

Garnering support from government, industry and the community has helped ease Khanyisile Mkhanyawo’s transition from agricultural newcomer to commercial farmer.

Prof Lumkile Nkuhlu, former president Thabo Mbeki’s economic advisor, and his wife Nondima, farm near Vrede in the Free State. Diversification has enabled them to improve their cash flow and create jobs. Peter Mashala reports.

The horse arrived in the Eastern Cape with the first Europeans during the 1700s, and by the late 1800s had become a central part of Xhosa life. The desire to know whose horse was the fastest fuelled a tradition of racing among the Xhosa that has survived to this day. Mike Burgess spent a day at the races in the village of Theko in the former Transkei.

Namibia is suffering its worst drought in 30 years. This is not only affecting grain and livestock production but has left 34% of the population, in southern Africa’s driest country, in need of urgent food support. Carine van Vuuren reports.

Combining quantity surveying and farming is highly unusual. But for Joachim Prinsloo, Agri Mpumalanga’s Young Farmer of the Year 2013, it has made all the difference. Lindi van Rooyen visited his farm in Kiepersol.

The Eastern Free State region bordering Lesotho is both dramatic and charming, with its huge sandstone cliffs, orchards, grain crops and livestock-dotted landscape. But, as Mike Burgess writes, there is an anarchic side to this region as cross-border crime continues to erode the fabric of commercial farming, despite a lengthy legal battle between organised agriculture and the state.