Sanele Mbele: Where Passion And Skill Meet

Passion for farming runs strong in the Mbele family’s veins. Sanele Mbele, from the farm Rietspruit in the De Jagersdrift area near Dundee, has inherited this passion in huge dollops.

- Izak Hofmeyr

“My grandfather used oxen to plow his allotted fields in the communal area and planted his own maize. My father, Simon, was a truck driver for 22 years, but he actively farmed part-time during this time.

“When my grandfather passed away, my father took to farming full-time. He and his brother Tulani rented a farm outside Harrismith and later bought one near Kestell.” Livestock theft, however, was and still is, rife in the Kestell area, so he opted to sell the farm and bought Rietspruit.

Initial foray into farming

After graduating from the Mangosuthu University of Technology, Sanele served as an intern at the Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) at Durban Harbour and eventually worked for the organization full-time.

“But the call of the land was too strong, and in 2015 I joined my father on the farm. Our initial aim was to grow the farm into a real business. I also wanted to be able to buy my own farm one day.”

They moved their 100 head of Angus cattle from Bergville to Dundee but soon learned that they needed a hardier, better-adapted type of animal for the Dundee environment.

A pure and crossbred herd

“Soon after moving here, we attended an auction with the intention of buying a Brahman bull. The prices were so high that we only managed to buy an old cow with a bull calf at foot. That bull calf became our first Brahman bull and since then, we have slowly been gravitating towards a Brahman-cross herd.”