Young Farmer Cuts Costs By Focusing On Bonsmaras

Cornel van Heerden is the Eastern Cape’s 2016 TAU SA’s Young Farmer of the Year. Mike Burgess visited him recently on the farm Wildefontein in the Lady Grey district to learn how he established an award-winning livestock enterprise while saving money, and why his extensive Bonsmara beef operation has proved such a success.

- Mike Burgess

Cornel van Heerden (34), the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s (TAU’s) Young Farmer of the Year for the Eastern Cape had to start from the bottom. “I got nothing for free,” he says.

Cornel, who was recently elected vice-chairperson of the Dordrecht TAU regional branch for 2017, did not inherit land, but today farms on approximately 4 000ha between Barkly East and Lady Grey with 390 Bonsmara females and 200 Merino ewes. After matriculating, he started working for his father, Johan, in 2000 and was paid in part with livestock. Cornel added these to a handful of cattle Johan had given him while he was still at school as an incentive to farm.

Eventually, in 2006, Cornel purchased the 1 000ha family farm Vaalkop in the Bonthoek, and today rents another 3 000ha from his father, who is retired and lives on La Vanier farm.

Cornel immediately committed himself to running Bonsmaras because the breed can handle the area’s very rugged terrain and mixed veld.

“I farm Bonsmaras because they climb our mountains – they get right to the top,’’ he explains.

The Bonsmara’s docile temperament is another advantage for Cornel. He employs only two workers and therefore needs a breed that is easy to handle and does not require chasing after.

On average, Cornel’s mature cows weigh between 450kg and 550kg. Heifers enter the herd at an annual rate of 25% to 30% and are put to the bull at an average age of 18 months for four months from November to February. 

Cows are mated for three months, from December to February. Selected females that fail to conceive are put to the bull again in March/April to calve in winter, when they are assisted with lucerne, oats or wheat, depending on the season. Cornel has 120ha under fodder crops.