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IN T H E SP OTLI GH T
History at
Kleinheuwel
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Charl has 13 John Deere
tractors as well as a harvester
on his farm.
wes is in Bloemfontein, as opposed
to the other big agencies which
are situated in Bultfontein and
Hoopstad.”
CATTLE
Charl does not own any breeding-cattle. For the past decade he
has been buying weaners at the
lowest possible weight and he sells
them at a weight of 290 kg. He
therefore has speculation cattle
only - 800 to 1 000 calves.
It was a huge advantage not to
have to feed any calves during the
drought. The other side of the
coin is, however, that there is no
income from the cattle component
during difficult times.
FARMING SENTIMENT
He believes that it is his duty to
motivate his children to follow a
career in agriculture. Charl and
Hetmari’s son, Robert (14) attends
the Jacobsdal Landbouskool and
he definitely has a passion for
farming, which means that he will
be the seventh generation farm-
18
er of the family. Their daughter
Shereé (11), is a learner at Oranje
Meisieskool. He admits that he
is fairly sentimental, but he adds:
“One should not be too sentimental. If your children don’t want to
farm they should be free to pursue
any other career.”
HOBBIES
Although farming takes up a lot of
his time, Charl is of the opinion
that a farmer should have hobbies.
Charl and his son went clay pigeon shooting the previous day.
He also flies his Kitfox 7-Supersport two-seater airplane, he enjoys
driving his BMW 1200 Adventure
and he is a 4x4-enthusiast. He
enjoys the challenge of the dunes
at Luderitz, Walvis Bay, Mier and
Boegeberg. His own farms also
offers a number of excellent 4x4routes, right up to level 5 routes.
OCT/NOV 2016 • SENWES Scenario
GAME
Game is kept on 1 800 hectares,
mainly on the farm Uitvlug-Wes.
The family originally kept black
wildebeest, blesbuck and springbok. However, the number of
species have been increased to 14
since 1990 and include impala,
blesbuck, hartebeest, gemsbuck,
zebras, njala, black wildebeest,
kudus, a number of waterbuck,
ostriches and lions.
EMPLOYEES
Charl has 16 farm workers and
some of the families have been
working on the farm since his
great grandfather’s days. He describes Jannie du Plessis as his
“right and left hand of the past five
years”. His real love is cattle, but
he does everything that needs to be
done on the farm which is situated
35 km from Bloemfontein.