“I want a farm in Africa”
A few years ago my husband, Mike, and I decided we wanted to leave the city and live on a farm. We didn’t plan to farm commercially, but wanted a sustainable vegetable and fruit garden.
We were impatient initially and put in offers on farms we knew very little about. Forced to continue our search on a number of occasions, we are grateful to have had the time to accumulate some basic yet necessary knowledge.
We learned, too, that many estate agents operating in small towns are often inadequately equipped to inform you about the details you deserve to know. We’d like to share a few key considerations with your readers:
1 Does the farm have access to water? It may seem obvious, but you generally have to source your own and you can do nothing without water! 2 If your water access is based on a water-share agreement, it should be made explicit to you what you are entitled to. Ensure that it’s legal and insist on an official agreement. A casual arrangement with the previous owner or the estate agent does not suffice. 3 Investigate borehole-accessed water thoroughly and educate yourself about what will be required to retrieve that water if systems aren’t already in place (pumps, power, storage). These things can quickly become expensive. 4 Consider how you might want to store water based on your requirements. If your farm includes a dam of any sort, make sure that you know what condition it’s in. 5 Insist on official boundary documentation, especially if you plan to actively farm the land or if your property shares borders with commercial farms. An informally drawn Google map is not sufficient. 6 If you can, speak to neighbouring farmers about the property. They may know something that you haven’t been told, or they could have different ideas about boundaries, infrastructure and so on. This could save a lot of frustration… and legal action! 7 If there are farm workers living on the land, educate yourself about their rights, as they are understandably protected under South African law. 8 If the land you wish to buy doesn’t yet have power and you’re blindly assuming that Eskom is the answer, first investigate the costs involved. Eskom access costs and ongoing rates are exorbitant and often unsustainable for small-scale farmers.