Milk partnership yields profits for farmers
Dream in pipeline to stand on own feet commercially
WHEN 152 AmaMfengu families got back the land stolen from them by the apartheid through the Group Areas Act, they leased the more than 600ha of land to white dairy farmers.
This changed when family members wanted to be involved in dairy farming on their own land. A meeting with the renting dairy farmer Johan du Plessis led to the formation of the Wittekleibosch Dairy Trust jointly owned by the 152 families and Du Plessis.
With 60% shareholding AmaMfengu, who are the majority shareholders of the trust with Du Plessis owning the balance, approached the Eastern Cape government for support to grow their commercial dairy farming.
One of the owners of the trust, Zilindile Blouw, who was 13 years old when they were evicted from the land, said they approached Du Plessis to partner with them when they got the land back, so there could be proper skills transfer.
“When we got back onto the land, it was a low-quality dairy farm. We realised that letting the white farmer go, would not help us profit from this dairy. We wanted them to teach us commercial dairy farming. We then agreed to partner with Johan.
“Between 1994 and 2001 they leased the land from our Tsitsikamma Development Trust and some of us were trained to manage the dairy farm. We are now partners,” said Blouw.
Blouw added: “This led to us getting 390 cattle, two tractors, planter and fertiliser spreader from this partnership for one of the farms we own as AmaMfengu, so we can stand alone in producing milk through the capital we make from this dairy farm.”
He said the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform bought centre pivots and silos to help them manage the feed production, as well as the feeding of cattle when at the milking parlour.
“Government helped us a lot by building a state-of-the-art dairy with quality machinery to ensure proper milking and to avoid the over-milking of our cattle that can negatively affect the quality of our milk,” Blouw explained.
“We now milk about 1 700 cattle from the 700 cattle we used to milk in the old dairy,” said Blouw adding that in the old dairy they produced 9 000 litres of milk.
They have now increased this to about 16 000 litres of milk in the new dairy per day.
He added that they had an off-take agreement with giant food producer Parmalat, who buys their milk.
Blouw said: “Owning a dairy factory could help us pasteurise our milk to expand our market beyond the current one. We can also sell some of our milk to local schools, hospitals and shops.
“Our plan is to have adequate resources and skills so we can farm commercially on our own. The opening of the new facility is a ‘thanksgiving day’ to us as we show our greatfulness to our government that has helped us achieve our dreams.
“Our dream now is to move from being partners to the next level of being commercial farmers. We will make sure that this facility will never be a white elephant. We will work here to keep it operating,” Blouw said.
Another beneficiary, Nowethu Msizi, who was 42 when they were evicted from the land, described the opening of the dairy as a great investment.
“We will ensure we leave a legacy of fighting poverty through agriculture. Our children will be able to benefit from this, hence we are very happy with this development.
“This will change our lives for the better. We have been asking government to assist us with this dairy. Through this dairy we want to see more development in this community,” said Msizi.
Du Plessis said when they were approached by the land owners, there were no such partnerships which involved black land owners and white farmers.
“We wanted a long-term relationship beyond the lease. We then drew up plans so that everyone was satisfied with what they were receiving from the business,” he explained.
“At that stage, the community was not satisfied with the 50/50 profit share,” said Du Plessis, adding that he made R1-million per annum 15 years ago, while the land owners earned about R400 000.
Du Plessis brought livestock, tractors, technical farming knowledge and management skills to the dairy trust partnership while the AmaMfengu brought in more than 650ha of land and massive infrastructure upgraded by government funding.
The trust owners split the profit they earn from selling milk to Parmalat, reinvest some of the money into the business while a portion is used by the land owners to build up capital for their other farm.