Onions To The Rescue Of A Sheep Farmer!

Diversifying to vegetable seed production has enabled Karoo sheep farmer PF Theron to reduce his climatic and production risks while greatly improving profitability. He spoke to Glenneis Kriel about how he has managed this process.

- Glenneis Kriel

FAST FACTS

• Drought and predation have made sheep production extremely difficult for Karoo farmer PF Theron and his father, Wilhelm.

• As a result, they have diversified into vegetable seed production, lowering their risk and improving farm income.

• The sheep also graze plant residue at the end of the production season.

Dwars-in-die-Weg, near Matjiesfontein in the Karoo, has suffered five consecutive years of drought, receiving less than 60mm of its 170mm annual average rain over the past three years.

Climatic conditions appear to have normalised this year, but PF Theron, who joined his father, Wilhelm, on the family farm at the start of the drought, estimates that it can take up to 10 years for Karoo vegetation to recover its full carrying capacity.

“The problem is that you can’t accelerate veld recovery by sowing seed, because the ecosystem is highly sensitive and the vegetation extremely diverse,” he explains.

With climate change expected to result in more extreme conditions, the chances are high that the region could suffer another drought before the veld has fully recovered. To alleviate the impact of the sheep on the veld, Theron significantly downscaled production during the drought, ending up with a mere 500 ewes on the 9 000ha farm. This would have been financially disastrous had Wilhelm not diversified into vegetable seed production a little more than 10 years ago, a move made possible by the farm’s good-quality borehole water.