Kalahari Farmer

46 YEARS AGO A farmer in the normally dry Kalahari stunned his neighbours when he produced a bumper crop of watermelons, beans, maize, pumpkins and sunflower.

In the awe-inspiring vastness of the Kalahari – where man and beast often die and where plants wither because of the idiosyncrasies of Mother Nature – is where self styled ‘Mad Apie Dames’ farms, and he farms successfully too, as recent crop returns have shown.

“People call me Mad Apie Dames. I am the Jonah who has a yen for ploughing up streets and sand dunes and the man who is responsible for driving away the rain. I am the man who would like to erect an edifice to the donkey, as a symbol of our civilisation, on one of the thousands of red, shifting sand dunes that is my country.” That is how Mr Dames, uncrowned Kalahari farming king and rebel farmer, describes himself.

The farm Grauwater – dig for water – Gochas, is where Apie Dames has thwarted Mother Nature and stopped the sniggers about that ‘sand dune farmer’. He has proved that, if the rains come, barrel-like watermelons, as sweet as nectar, and maize can be successfully grown. “That is, if the Good Lord provides rain at the right time,” he adds.

This year Apie Dames’s revolutionary plans in the predominantly sheep-rearing area have paid dividends. He is jubilant.

It all started in 1965 when Apie, with his predeliction for agriculture, moved from the chalk plateau south of Mariental, lock, stock and barrel, into the vastness of the Kalahari which is now his home. One of the first things he packed was his plough. It was to pay dividends later.

“When you have felt the fine texture of the red Kalahari sand, and let it trickle through your fingers, your heart immediately turns to the plough shear.”