NOT A DULL MOMENT ON TIERHOK

He’s kept busy on his farm Tierhok, but Danie Malan still has time for a sideline job: he has a special workshop where he sharpens secateurs used for harvesting citrus from citrus-growing regions across the country. A pair of these pruning shears, used to snip an orange off a branch quickly and cleanly, is a specialised tool.

“Look, it has to be sharp,” Danie says. “If you have to cut through thousands of stalks in a day, you don’t want hassles.” The stalk has to be cut off smoothly, flush with the peel, otherwise the oranges are damaged in the packing process. The secateurs have a special leather strap that fits around the thumb so as not to slip out of a fruit picker’s hand. “If one drops in the long grass in an orchard, it’ll take a while to find it again.”

Danie started his workshop 15 years ago and today he sharpens up to 7 000 secateurs per season, sent in by farmers from as far afield as Mpumalanga. “It keeps me busy, yes, but the extra money also pays for our annual holiday in Namibia.”