From mining to breeding awardwinning sheep

Faced with the grim reality of retrenchment, Larry Snyders refused to give in to despair. Instead, he poured all his energy into his sideline business, a small White Dorper stud. A few years later, he reached the pinnacle of his new career, becoming a champion breeder. He shared his story with Susan Marais.

- Susan Marais.

Larry Snyders’s story begins with an experience sickeningly familiar to many South Africans: retrenchment. In 2016, he was one of 2 500 individuals who lost their jobs at Kumba Iron Ore.

“This forced me to relook at my career. I decided to focus full-time on my sideline business, my small White Dorper stud. I haven’t regretted the decision for a single moment.”

It’s not hard to understand why. Earlier this year, Snyders was crowned the Breeder of Champions at the biennial Dorper World Championship Show, which took place in May. His stud produced the Grand Champion Ewe and the Reserve Grand Champion, amongst others.

This is no mean feat, considering that 1 200 animals from 39 studs from across the country took part in the competition.

STRUGGLES WITH GOVERNMENT

In the year after his retrenchment, Snyders got a lucky break: he managed to obtain a 25-year lease from government for the farm Vooruitsig, an 8 000ha property in the Van Zylsrus district of the Northern Cape. The farm receives between 250mm and 300mm of rainfall annually and has mixed Kalahariveld with grasses such as tall bushman grass (Stipagrostis ciliata) and gha grass (Centropodia glauca).

Over the past six years, Snyders has expanded his farming activities. In addition to the White Dorper stud, he now has a commercial Dorper herd and a commercial herd of Bonsmara-type cattle.

It has certainly not been plain sailing to come to this point. Snyders says that though he was grateful for the opportunity to lease land from government, the state turned out to be a rather poor landlord.