West Cape News

Caitlin Ross

The Elim Dairy, some 35 kilometers outside the small farming town of Bredasdorp, 200 kilometres from Cape Town in the direction of Port Elizabeth, is an initiative the Department of Agriculture is “very confident will last”.

Its success thus far bucks the trend in which up to 30 small dairy farms are, according to the Milk Producers Association, shutting down every month in South Africa, and a nationwide scenario in which many community-driven agricultural schemes are failing.

Its success over the last two years, said Agriculture MEC Cobus Dowry, is due to the department’s involvement in terms of mentoring support and donations of cows, equipment and other assets to the tune of R3.54m.

“The jersey cows we have donated are of top genetic quality. The normal difficulties have been softened by the Department’s involvement,” he said during a visit to the dairy on Thursday this week as part of his “monitoring tour to check that the department is doing its work”.

The dairy, which was established in September 2007, has 112 cows over 23 hectares of irrigated pasture and is run by the Moravian Church mission, the members of which have shares in two companies, the Elim Milk Cow company and the Elim Dairy company.

Each company has seven directors and is overseen by the Elim supervisory board.

However, administrator of the supervisory board, Malcolm Temmers, when asked, did not specify how many shareholders there were.

Temmers said as the dairy was in its early stages, the shareholders “were few”, but the numbers would increase as the initiative expanded.

Currently, the dairy was producing an average of 2 400 litres of milk per day, which was sold to commercial dairy producer Parmalat. The land itself was owned by the church mission while the cows are owned by some of the residents.

The dairy manager and three workers (two of whom are women) are community members and the advisory committee includes community members alongside independent experts.

Although Dowry said the dairy was turning a profit, investor Mr. H. M. Engel said he did not know how much money had been made or what the returns would be. “I just hope they’ll make a good thing of it,” said the retired teacher.

Small-scale farmers from the surrounding areas interested in producing forage to the dairy were presented with “food suitcases”, including spades, seed and other farming utensils.

Plans to expand the number of hectares and cows are being developed as well as “very careful planning” to build an off-stream dam storage facility for seasonal water for irrigation purposes.

The long-term goal was to have 420 hectares of land (120ha irrigated) to sustain 360 cows. The dairy farm is supported by local commercial farmers, the Milk Producers’ Association, Agri-Mega, Overberg-Agri, as well as neighbouring farmers and friends of the dairy.

Director of Farmer Settlement Toni Xaba said, “The government has recognized that there are ways to improve the way we deal with land reform. Whereas before, government was just giving land, now we must give the land as well as infrastructure and support. It’s now time to put that into practice”. – West Cape News