Hugenoot breeder's scientific success

Yusuf Ravat, who runs the Yari Hugenoot Stud on his farm in Limpopo, has a passion for acquiring knowledge and working with accurate data. He farms according to scientific methods to achieve the best possible outcome for his stud, and in just three years has achieved remarkable results. Pieter Dempsey reports.

- Pieter Dempsey

FAST FACTS

Hugenoot stud breeder Yusuf Ravat was this year’s recipient of the RDB/SA Stud Book Elite 2021 Unique Performer award.

He received the award for his role in ensuring that the Hugenoot became the fourth beef cattle breed in South Africa to boast genomically enhanced breeding values.

Ravat breeds systematically to manage and eventually rid his herd of the breed’s double muscling trait.

Yusuf Ravat is a seventh-generation farmer whose ancestors were also born and raised in the Waterberg district of Limpopo. It is here, on the 240ha farm Ravatsrus in the Modimolle area, that Ravat runs his Yari Hugenoot Stud, a commercial cattle herd, and Boer goat and Dorper sheep flocks. He also rents additional land for grazing for the animals.

Ravat recently received the RDB/SA Stud Book Elite 2021 Unique Performer of the Year award for his contributions to the Hugenoot SA Cattle Breeders’ Association. Specifically, the award recognises the way in which he has implemented scientifically proven, genomically enhanced breeding values through the genomic evaluation of his entire herd.

He makes extensive use of the Logix/SA Stud Book breeding values to improve his herd’s genetic breeding values as well as those of the entire Hugenoot breed. Ravat’s dedication to the industry was credited as the reason the Hugenoot breed has become the fourth beef cattle breed in South Africa to boast genomically enhanced breeding values (GEBV BLUP). Ravat is the first and thus far the only breeder of the Hugenoot SA Cattle Breeders’ Association to have his entire herd genomically and DNA tested.