Award-Winning Brangus Breeder's Formula For Success

Christopher Sparks can be counted as one of the top cattle stud producers in South Africa after having claimed two prestigious national titles last year. Sabrina Dean visited him at his Mount Olive Brangus Stud in the Free State to find out what it is he is doing right.

- Sabrina Dean

The bakkie bounces along through the sourveld grazing camp. The prevalent red grass, Themeda triandra, looks lush and healthy, thanks to the mist belt conditions on the farmland surrounding the tiny village of Swinburne in the Free State.

Ahead is a cow with her young calf. Stockman Bongaan Ncama jumps off the bakkie and quickly gets hold of the calf, only a few hours old but already strong and lively.

This ritual takes place at the birth of every calf on the farm. The colour is recorded and the animal is sexed, tagged and weighed. Within hours of its birth, breeder Christopher Sparks will have laid hands and eyes on the latest addition to his award-winning Brangus stud herd. Sparks, one of the top Brangus breeders in South Africa, won two awards in 2018: the Agricultural Research Council’s (ARC) Beef Improvement Herd of the Year, and the Breedplan Stud Producer of the Year.

BUYING BACK THE FAMILY FARM

Sparks grew up riding and hunting on the rolling hills surrounding Swinburne. His family owned most of this farmland, as well as the village itself, until his grandmother sold it off following her husband’s death. In the late 1990s, Sparks bought back his first plot of this land, a 1,8ha smallholding called Mount Olive Stables, where he kept his beloved Arabian horses.

Over the years he gradually acquired additional pieces of the farmland, and today has reclaimed much of the farm that once belonged to his family. An architect by trade, he runs his firm from an office he has established in the town.