The stories that got us through a tough year

Farmer’s Weekly editor, Denene Erasmus, looks back at some of the top stories of 2020 that not only inspired her, but also served as an example to all South Africans of the remarkable resilience and determination shown by the farming sector during this most unusual year.

- Denene Erasmus

Perseverance wins

Farming is associated with a large degree of uncertainty and risk. It can take many years for a farming business to show a profit, and in between it will be vulnerable to shocks sucgh as floods and drought, which the farmer will have no control over. That is why farmers have to be able to persevere.

The Webster family of Foundation Farm in Weenen, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), know this well (FW, 17 January). When they started their business in 1990, Alan and Frances Webster had to endure scepticism from naysayers that their small dairy farm would last. They began by spending all their savings to buy 37ha of irrigated pastures and a nuclear herd of 20 Jersey cows. The couple recalls that for the first five years, they operated in “survival mode”; they used a tiny four-point milking parlour to produce about 250â„“ of milk a day. The Websters and some of the five farmworkers they employed at that time manually filled 500ml bottles with milk, and sold these daily to customers at Weenen’s bus rank and to hawkers. The business gradually grew, but their big break came in 2000 when they signed a milk supply agreement with Nestlé. They have continued to use loans over the past 20 years to carefully grow the business to its current size of just over 1 000 Jersey cows, fed on 220ha of irrigated pastures. The Websters say they hope their efforts to overcome challenges through passion, patience, hard work and determination will inspire other aspiring farmers to never give up on their dreams.

FARMERS SUPPORTING FARMERS