How Angus cattle add value to a fruit farm

The production of Angus cattle enables Western Cape farmer Gielie Geldenhuys to make use of land unsuitable for fruit or onion production. He spoke to Glenneis Kriel about his diversification enterprise.

- Glenneis Kriel

Conditions on Gielie Geldenhuys’s family farm in the Theronsberg region, 30km north of Ceres in the Western Cape, are harsh. Winters are cold, typically with snow, summers are hot, and the grazing comprises sourveld. Faced with these realities in the 1970s, Geldenhuys’s father, Basie, kept a variety of breeds on the farm to test which had the best chance of thriving. In the end, he settled on medium-framed Angus cattle.

“Despite being of British origin, Angus cattle have adapted well to South African production conditions,” says Geldenhuys. “Some Scottish farmers who visited us during the World Angus Tour in 2005 said they’d rather run away than try to produce cattle under our harsh conditions! They couldn’t believe what we’d achieved with these cattle on sourveld and with our low rainfall.”

In addition to this, the breed requires little supervision, thanks to its easy temperament, easy calving and fast growth. These traits, explains Geldenhuys, are essential on his busy mixed farm, where he produces pome fruit, nectarines, onions, and sheep and goats.

Yet another advantage of the Angus, he adds, is that the meat is in high demand, thanks to its marbling.

In the mid-1980s, after working on farms in the US for a couple of years, Geldenhuys decided to turn the family’s herd into a stud, which was registered as Rheeboksplaat Stud in 1989.

“While working on a number of Angus stud farms, I realised that it cost just as much to raise stud cattle as it did commercial animals, but stud cattle presented an additional revenue stream, as the cattle fetched better prices than on the meat market.”