Committing to Bonsmara

Mthobeli Dintsi was a 2022 provincial winner in the National Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo Farmer of the Year competition, a category of the Agricultural Research Council's National Beef Performers Awards. Mike Burgess visited him recently on his farm in the Eastern Cape to better understand his journey to commercial beef production with Bonsmaras.

- Mike Burgess

"I go full force for Bonsmara. When you farm cattle, it's good to focus [on a specific breed]." So says Mthobeli Dintsi of his approach to beef production on his 646ha farm, Flatfield, near Cathcart in the Eastern Cape, which is home to about 100 Bonsmara-type breeding females.

Dintsi also has a state land reform farm near Indwe, where he runs about 100 crossbred cows put to Bonsmara bulls.

His focus now is to build a herd of top commercial Bonsmaras on Flatfield and then expand his beef operation on more land in the Cathcart district.

FROM COMMUNAL TO COMMERCIAL

Dintsi's interest in livestock farming began in the former Transkei region of Lady Frere where he was born and raised. From a young age, he was required to herd the family's cattle in the vast communal grazing areas, a job that held considerable responsibility, as his father, Nimrod, was a migrant worker in the Western Cape.

Dintsi recalls that back then, "there was no focus on a specific breed; we just bought cattle, and that's where it all started".

FAST FACTS

Mthobeli Dintsi ran cattle on a land reform farm before purchasing Flatfield in 2016.

His herd of commercial Bonsmara achieves an 80% calving rate on the veld.

He is grateful for the help provided by the state's veterinary services in his annual herd inoculation programme.

In the early 1980s, Dintsi became a migrant worker himself, first on the copper mines near Prieska in the Northern Cape, and thereafter in the gold mines near Klerksdorp in today's North West.

After several years in the mining industry, Dintsi returned to the Eastern Cape and enrolled for a course as a motor mechanic at a technical college in Ezibeleni near Queenstown in the late 1980s.