No Slowing Down For This Commercial Cattle Woman

Alwene Ford may be nearing what many would consider normal retirement age, but the 63-year-old commercial cattle farmer has no plans to slow down. Sabrina Dean visited her on her farm near Barkly West in the Northern Cape.

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Alwene Ford is the sole proprietor of her beef cattle farming operation, run under the umbrella of Stony Ridge Ventures. She produces crossbred weaner calves reared solely on the veld on her farm Klipfontein, between Barkly West and Koopmansfontein in the Northern Cape.

Ford has, in recent years, expanded her business interests to include game farming, and is now also establishing an agritourism component. Amid all this, however, she is striving to leave the land in a better state than she received it in.

TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY

Although Ford was raised on a farm, her father, Theophilus Paton, did not consider farming a fitting career for a girl. So, instead, she went off to study creative art, got married and had children. In 1994, however, the chance to pursue her first passion arose when she bought a Hereford stud herd comprising 25 cows with calves and a bull.

“I bought the herd on debt at 15% interest from a farmer whose son didn’t want to continue stud breeding. I had to pay him back over three years. It was rough,” she says.

She bought her first farm, Koppiesdam, at a foreclosure sale in 1996. “It was a lucky break. I believe everyone gets one; it’s up to you to take it or leave it. But rest assured, when that hammer fell on my bid, I was so worried.”

She knew she had only about a quarter of the asking price in her savings, but the bid was a quarter of the value of the outstanding debt on the land. She could not afford to let the opportunity slip away, so she bought the farm, and made plans later to finance it through the Land Bank.

Ford eventually sold Koppiesdam to finance the purchase of Klipfontein, a larger farm.