THREE YEARS ON, AND
THREE YEARS ON, AND
THINGS ARE ON THE UP
Its nearly three years since
Peter and Vicky Gent
rented out their arable farm
in Berks and bought a farm
in S Africa. They report
on how things are going
A LOT has happened since we arrived here in 1998. Our son Sebastian was born in February 2000, the dairy will be in its third year in May and we currently milk 250 cows (with plans to increase that to 350). We also have three women doing all the milking, which releases the men to move on to irrigation and do some tractor driving.
Dairy
We no longer supply milk to Nestle as they miscalculated our quota for the second year running. Instead we moved to a local cheese buyer who is only a few kilometres away and gives us a better price without restrictions on production.
In December 1998 milk prices dropped to an all-time low of 95c (9p) on quota milk and 65c (6p) on over-quota milk. It was a very worrying time. It was also one of the driest and hottest summers on record and the dams (reservoirs) almost dried out.
The ryegrass stopped growing in November and roughage was very short, so we bought in lucerne at a hefty price of £2.50/bale to keep us going.
In April 1999 milk prices started to climb again as more competition came to the area. Believe it or not, there was then a shortage of milk. After being told by Nestle that they had too much milk, they now said they didnt have enough.
We started to supply a local cheese factory in May 1999 as well as selling to Nestle. Prices increased to R1.10/litre (10p). By December we were supplying all our milk to the local buyer whose factory was starting to take off and we dropped Nestle. We are currently getting R1.43/litre (13p).
The factory makes feta cheese from Jersey milk, as well as soft cheeses, cream, yoghurt and fresh milk. It has contracts nationally with Spar, PicknPay, 7/11 and local garages. We have also bought a young South African-registered Jersey bull and an Angus for cross-breeding as the Jersey bulls are dealt with at birth.
A man comes to the farm every few months to buy all our cross-breeds. The price here in the Western Cape is a lot lower than in the Transvaal where he takes them. He sells them for almost double the price we get – £25 for a week-old calf.
Fieldwork
We have started renting a neighbouring farm, something we had wanted to do for a while. The rent is R2100/month (£190) for 100ha (250 acres) which is around £19/ha. The land is very uneven and hard and we had to burn the fields ready for discing.
Early last year we bought a Case 2470 from a local farm sale. Its 15 years old, was made in Brazil and is fitted with a Scania lorry engine. The young man from England who came to work for us for a while last year was a Case mechanic, so he came in very handy.
Staff are much better than they were. The current workers have been at Packwood for a year and a half. They all get on with each other very well and make a good team. Our foreman, one of the younger guys, is taking a correspondence course on diesel mechanics. He is doing a lot more driving now and gets frequent help from Peter, who assesses his college work and practical abilities.
We bought a 3t lorry to pick up fertiliser. This is delivered in bulk to a local dairy farmer and is a lot cheaper to buy as part of a buying group. We also put in a centre pivot on the farm to irrigate 40ha (120 acres). This will be used for perennial ryegrass, which grows for 10 months of the year, as well as annual ryegrass on another part of the farm and oats and ryegrass for silage. In summer we have to grow sorghum and teff.
We are also conducting trials on different forage crops for dry land conditions. At the moment these consist of yellow or red seredella, forage chicory, forage millet and Rooiberg teff.
Weather and disease
We are still making round bale silage and hay. We ammonia-treated 100 bales of oat hay, which was a blessing as it was so dry during 1999 and 2000.
The north of South Africa has had a lot of rain in the last few months after a long-lasting terrible drought many beef farmers sold their cattle as they had little or no grazing, only for the rain to return and the grass to flourish. This has increased the price of cattle as there is now too much grass and too few animals to eat it.
We suffered an infestation of maize beetle which ate 8ha (20 acres) of ryegrass. The nearby Tsitsikamma area was struck very badly, losing 50-60% of its annual and perennial ryegrass.
Financial
The good news is that the interest rate has come down from 25% to 14% within the last two years. However, since buying Packwood, the South African rand has weakened considerably. In 1999 £1 was worth R7, now there are R11 to the £. Meanwhile, the local authority is about to tax water, whether you get it from your roof, a borehole or dam, and puts a £1.20/ha/yr tax on land.
One last thing. Were currently looking for a farm manager/herdsman, an au-pair/nanny and a farm mechanic. If youre interested get in touch.
The Gents were last featured in FW
in the June 11, 1999 issue.
Left: The Gents farm near Plettenburg in the Cape Province.
Above: Some of the 100ha of rented land. Right: Peter and Vicky Gent. Main pic: Typical farming scene in Cape Province. Inset below: Packwood Farmhouse.
OUR GUEST HOUSE
BUSINESS
Tourism boomed in 1999 but slowed in 2000, possibly due to the Zimbabwe situation or because people spent too much on their millennium celebrations. The guest house was slow from May to October last year but started to pick up after that. Europeans still flock to South Africa in the high season, but its the Germans that keep everyone going through the low season.
We had some great British people stay with us over the last two years. We are still trying to encourage the UK farmers and county folk to come and stay with us, we really do offer a great time and a home from home.
We can be contacted on:
0027 44 532 7614 (tel),
0027 44 532 7726 (fax) or
packwood@global.co.za (e-mail). Our web-site www.packwood.co.za gives details of rates.
The Gents currently milk 250 cows and hope to increase that to 350 in the near future.
Above: A prolonged drought meant this farm reservoir all but dried up.
Left: As it should be normally.
MECHANICS STORY
Being a mechanic here is very
different from the UK, writes Stuart Warwick, who did a
6-month stint at Packwood as farm mechanic. There, we would normally replace old
parts with new; here you
strip the machine down
and repair the old parts.
Relying on suppliers to get you the right parts is a nightmare but we get there in the end. Working with basic equipment (like jacks and tree trunks as supports instead of a splitting trolley) is also tricky at times, but you learn to make the best of what
equipment you havePackwood is a very well-run farm despite working with machinery from Noahs Ark (sorry Peter and Vicky). It shows you can do the work just as well with old machines – it just takes
a bit longer and you need
more patience. The cost of new machines over here is much
higher than in the UK so very
few farmers have
state-of-the-art equipment.