Zolani Tyali and his son Mandange recently won the 2017 Unistel SA Stud Book Elite Developing Farmer award. Mike Burgess visited them on their farm in the Eastern Cape to gain a better understanding of the ups and downs experienced in their stud and commercial Nguni operations.
Farmer-and-son team Zolani and Mandange Tyali farm Nguni cattle on their 202ha farm, Brooklyn, near Morgan Bay in the Eastern Cape. The quality of their Tshezi Nguni herd of 70 stud and 35 commercial female animals was recently recognised when the Tyalis received the 2017 Unistel SA Stud Book Elite Developing Farmer award.
“Our Ngunis were good enough to be registered with SA Stud Book in 2011, and we were then invited to join the Amathole Nguni Breeders’ Group in 2013,” recalls Mandange.
These events, he says, are his greatest accomplishments since returning to the farm in 2008, after having completed a BA in sports science at the University of Pretoria and working in Port Elizabeth for a period.
Despite these achievements, Zolani and Mandange have been unable to improve and expand their operation by acquiring additional quality land. They have been searching for 10 years without success.
“All the production problems we have revert to the same thing: a lack of land,’’ Mandange says.
THE LAND PROBLEM
In the 1990s, Zolani belonged to the Eastern Cape Nguni Club and ran cattle on two small farms near Kei Mouth that he bought and sold successively. In 2004, after selling the second of these, he bought Brooklyn.
In the mid-2000s, he and several other family members received the 192ha farm, Hatchleydene near Komga, through the state’s Land Distribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) programme.
This farm had several major shortcomings, however: it was too small to carry more than 40 head of cattle, it was infested with lantana and inkberry, and it had poor water resources and infrastructure. After unsuccessful negotiations to return it to the state, Zolani sold Hatchleydene on the open market in 2015.
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