Long live our farmers

Farmers have always commanded our deepest respect: These are the people who put food on our tables year after year, in spite of onslaughts from the elements, politicians and other mobsters.

We recall how the farmers of our town arrived one by one to introduce themselves after we bought “the long house” (then still yellow) on the main street of Koringberg in 2005 – the one with the two dying trees and little else in the yard. Some of them have been popping in often since, and then they would share their knowledge, help where they can and resolve our country’s issues.

In our heads we all have a certain picture of a farmer: A mature male, usually no-nonsense, with a hat and a Hilux, perhaps with a dog on the back. In this edition, we meet three individuals you may never have guessed are farmers through and through. First we have Maria van Zyl from Piket-Bo-Berg (on the cover of this magazine), a young woman who learnt how to make butter in the Alps and has turned it into a business. We paid her a visit to watch her milking her own five cows – and we signed up on the spot to receive her weekly prepaid dairy box: 4 ℓ milk (it tastes the way it did in the good old days!), a block of cultured butter (even better than in the old days) and a large jar of yoghurt. Slow, wholesome food, all prepared by hand. Then there is the “egg tannie” of Riebeek-Kasteel, a bundle of energy who cannot keep up with the demand for eggs and meat from her free-range chickens.

What do these two young women have in common? They cut out the middleman and in doing so they are able to make a living from a smallscale farming operation.

Speaking of small: Do read the remarkable story of the little boy who started driving large machinery from the age of 6 on his family’s farm near Ohrigstad.

Three diverse farmers, yet all farmers in every respect – people who deserve our support.