Getting Settled On Carnarvon Estates

In 2009, the managing director of Nerpo, Aggrey Mahanjana, took charge of the 5 000ha Carnarvon Estates land reform farm in the Eastern Cape. Today he can look back on a successful journey, but one that has had its share of bumps and potholes. Mike Burgess reports.

- Mike Burgess

“I couldn’t fold my arms and wait for the government to do things for me,” says Aggrey Mahanjana, the managing director of the National Emergent Red Meat Producers’ Organisation (Nerpo). “If I did, I’d have been counted among the failed land reform beneficiaries.”

Since taking control of the 5 000ha Carnarvon Estates land reform farm near Sterkstroom in the Eastern Cape, Mahanjana has personally invested no less than R18 million on a property for which he has no title deed.

The government purchased Carnarvon Estates from the the Halse family in 2006 as part of its Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development programme. It was then given to the 23 farm workers who had previously been employed there. The initiative began to flounder, however, and when the land redistribution programme became the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) in 2009, Mahanjana was asked by the Chris Hani regional Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to take over.

It has been a hard journey, and only recently has he managed to break even. He has 500 beef cows and 3 000 dual-purpose Dohne Merino ewes, and this year held his first successful on-farm auction of 198 cattle and 206 sheep. The farm also has a vibrant hunting-agritourism enterprise, launched by the previous owners, and the future is looking brighter.

THE RIGHT MAN

Mahanjana’s qualifications and experience made him the ideal person to take over the troubled operation. He has a master’s degree in animal production from the University of Pretoria, and was a former extension specialist and agricultural college principal.