By Lloyd Phillips
The 2024 Toyota/AgriSA Young Farmer of the Year has a remarkable story to tell. From owning 30 head of Drakensberger-cross beef cattle at 16 years old, Dwayne Kaschula built himself a still-growing farming empire over the next 22 years.
It was most unfortunate circumstances that led to a 16-year-old Dwayne Kaschula having to drop out of school, leave the family farm and start working for another farmer in the Eastern Cape’s Maclear district. Instead of allowing life to get him down, especially at such a young age, Dwayne immediately turned adversity into opportunity. In fact, he has been so adept at this that, at his present age of 38, he is now the sole owner of various properties and a range of farming enterprises.
In an interview with African Farming on his farm Confluence, Dwayne consistently credits his success to the support of many people over the years. While this is largely true, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Dwayne is clearly modest, but through some determined questioning, this journalist got to know a driven, hard-working and principled entrepreneur.
“At 16, I began working for a respected mentor and potato farmer in the Maclear district, who asked not to be named here. This farmer taught me so much about managing a farming operation,” Dwayne says.
“At the same time, I had my own herd of about 30 Drakensberger-cross commercial beef cows, originally from my family’s farm. I used part of my modest monthly salary to lease grazing for them, and sold weaners from the herd. I also started buying oxen from communal farmers in my district and sending them to the abattoir for profit. This income allowed me to gradually grow and improve my herd.”
The late Wally Stay of WC Stay Bonsmaras in the neighbouring Elliot district, a successful beef stud breeder, was a key adviser to Dwayne in his development as a beef farmer. Wally encouraged Dwayne to incorporate Angus genetics into his Drakensberger-cross herd.
At not even 21 years old, and while still working for the potato farmer, Dwayne was already on the lookout for farmland that he could buy. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise that commercial banks unsurprisingly declined Dwayne’s loan applications to buy a farm because he was so young and had insufficient collateral.
A farm owner at 21
An undeterred Dwayne decided to approach John Henning, the owner of the cropping and grazing Confluence farm, directly to see if he’d be willing to negotiate a private sale agreement. John not only agreed to direct repayment terms with Dwayne but also sold the entire farm as a going concern.
Dwayne says this encompassed 1 200 ha of land, of which about 120 ha were dryland arable soil and the balance sourveld grazing. Then there was the commercial beef herd of about 100 Bonsmara x Brahman cows, all the machinery and implements, and all other equipment and infrastructure.
Before resigning from his existing employment, in the 2006/7 summer Dwayne used his own money and Confluence’s resources to plant about 50 ha of his first-ever commercial dryland yellow maize. He used most of this harvest as feed for a small-scale beef feedlot that he established on the farm and as supplementary nutrition for his beef herd.
“After selecting and culling the poorest animals, I was left with about 150 cows comprising a mix of Angus, Drakensberger, Bonsmara and Brahman genetics. During 2007 I moved to Confluence farm to live and work there full time. I used all the experience and knowledge that I had gained from my former employer and from Wally, and through learning by doing, to gradually expand and improve my cropping and beef enterprises as farm income increased.”
Dwayne’s “big leap forward” occurred in 2009. He felt the business was stagnating on only beef and maize, which generated income once or twice a year. So he expanded into commercial potato production. This not only reduced risk by diversifying farm income sources, but, through strategic planting, harvesting and marketing, it also eventually generated constant income for as long as six months of the year.
Potatoes do best under irrigation, however. To address this requirement within his financial means at the time, Dwayne invested in a comparatively small two-tower centre pivot system to irrigate 5 ha. He planted an additional 5 ha of dryland potatoes.
In anticipation of his first potato harvest, he bought a second-hand potato washer and equipped a small potato packing shed.
“Barring a few bad years, typical of farming, I’ve been able to continue gradually growing my enterprises and even to add a few new ones. I think that what has really become beneficial for me is finding ways to first add value to my products before selling as much as possible directly to retailers.”
A prime example of Dwayne’s turning adversity into opportunity is when local maize prices slumped to around R1 550 per tonne in 2010 or so. Instead of marketing maize as a commodity, he began bagging his harvest on the farm in sizes ranging from 2 kg to 40 kg. He sold some of this maize whole and some crushed.
Dwayne personally visited, negotiated with and secured wholesale and retail buyers within a 250 km radius of his farm.
He sold all of his bagged yellow maize in four to five months. To avoid potentially ruining mutually beneficial business relationships, he immediately started buying in yellow maize at commodity prices and continued to bag and market it for a profit throughout the year.
Dwayne was eventually handling an average of 2 000 tonnes of maize per month, which prompted him to invest in a 1 600-tonne-capacity grain silo on Confluence. “Maize was constantly flowing through the silo,” he says.
Perseverance pays off
Dwayne again refused to allow adversity to get in the way of opportunity. He still wanted the pleasure of having game on his farm but the animals had to somehow start paying their way. Dwayne eventually figured out that this was possible if he set himself up for a greater share of the game ranching value chain.
To this end, he bought a 50% share in the local Macgrow abattoir, which is accredited to process game along with cattle, sheep and pigs. Dwayne also began focusing on simultaneously improving the types, numbers and trophy quality of his game. Excess numbers or poorer quality animals are culled and processed at Macgrow.
Dwayne ultimately wants to mainly provide top-quality trophy animals to international hunters who are prepared to pay a premium for the privilege. It is, however, a slow and expensive process towards this goal. He already has a hunting cottage built, he has the Macgrow abattoir, he will sub-contract hunting outfitters to facilitate the hunts, and he is already buying and selling breeding stock at big-name auctions.
“My game enterprise now comprises about 220 ha. The main species I own are about 50 disease-free buffalo, both the golden and king colour variants of blue wildebeest, red lechwe, blesbok, waterbuck, common reedbuck, nyala and grey rhebok.”
Over the years, Dwayne also gradually but significantly improved his initially greatly mixed commercial beef herd. For many years, his main market was exclusively beef weaners for feedlots. During this time, he discovered that cross-breeding Angus and Brahman genetics yielded the best results under Confluence’s conditions. This performance improved further when he began incorporating Brangus genetics.
He describes the Brangus as highly adaptable and as “the Land Cruiser of cattle for us”.
When cattle prices skyrocketed around 2020, Dwayne found it too expensive to continue buying top Brangus bulls that he needed to keep improving his own commercial production, so he decided to start breeding his own Brangus bulls.
“I had Brangus breed inspectors go through my commercial beef herd to select all the Brangus cows that qualified as stud animals in terms of the breed standards. Out of my approximately 450 commercial cow herd, only 50 were selected to form the nucleus of what was to become my Confluence Brangus Stud herd.”
Also in 2020, Dwayne bought about 20 stud heifers to establish his Confluence Angus Stud herd.
“The real game-changer was when I decided, in 2021, to prioritise artificial insemination (AI) of my stud females. AI allows a new breeder like me to comparatively easily and quickly widen the genetic pool by taking advantage of a variety of bulls, both international and local. It’s then easier and quicker to identify the genetic lines that perform best under my production conditions.”
For his stud herds, Dwayne is using semen from 12 to 16 sires annually. Some of these are from older and therefore more proven lines in America, and others from younger yet still good quality lines in South Africa.
For both his Brangus and Angus cattle, Dwayne prefers medium-framed animals that are efficient converters of nutrition to beef and that can handle the hilly local terrain. He also places emphasis on achieving a weaner that weighs at least 50% of its mother’s weight at weaning.
The selection of bulls to achieve this goal is largely based on their conformation to breed standards. Whenever possible, Dwayne personally assesses potential South African sires for his stud herds. For international sires, he relies on feedback from South African breed experts who have personally visited and assessed these overseas bulls.
Synchronised AI for maximum benefits
Dwayne uses a progesterone-releasing intravaginal device (PRID) to synchronise his females for the AI process. AI is carried out from August to October, aiming for the cows to calve around June. Each cow is given two AI attempts to conceive. If both fail, she is mated with a live bull. If this also fails, she is culled from the herd.
“I wean my calves at 6 months old for various reasons. Most importantly, it’s to allow the cows as much rest and recovery as possible before they are inseminated again. My calves are weaned from February to April, when grazing quality is still good. The cows will go into winter in good condition and will therefore still be in sufficient condition for the following AI.”
As things stand, among Dwayne’s stud cattle the average conception is 94%, the average inter-calving period is 397 days, the average weaning is 92%, and the average weaning weight at 180 days is 238 kg.
Dwayne recently decided to also start selling stud bulls to other breeders and producers. His first proper sales are scheduled for July 2025; he anticipates bringing five to seven bulls to auction. This will be a joint auction with Delwyn Roberts of the Fairbridge Brangus and Charolais Stud.
Dwayne’s long-term goal is to market top-quality stud females. To add value, he plans to sell them as three-in-one packages: a pregnant cow with a calf at foot. Ideally, each will come from a different but equally high-quality line.
In the years leading up to 2021, more farmers and entrepreneurs caught on to Dwayne’s idea of marketing bagged maize for added profit. The market became so saturated that it became too marginal for Dwayne to continue doing it on a large scale. His calculations also revealed that selling commodity maize to bulk buyers would not be worthwhile.
Once again, when faced with adversity, Dwayne looked for opportunity. Through extensive research, he was surprised to find that a commercial egg production enterprise on Confluence could be a highly feasible way to add value to his yellow maize harvest.
“Even when I investigated if it would be a good fit into my existing operations and if there was sufficient market opportunity, commercial eggs still ticked all the boxes.”
To first create the market that would justify his spending an initial investment of at least R10 million on a modern layer house for 25 000 birds, in 2021 Dwayne began buying in 60 000 ungraded eggs per week from the Queenstown district.
As with his maize and potatoes, Dwayne began having the eggs graded and packed on Confluence, and marketed under his newly established Sharp Sharp Eggs brand. Most of the retailers who were already buying Dwayne’s maize and potatoes were happy to add his eggs to their shelves.
“We were delivering eggs every day for about 18 months before I was sufficiently convinced to spend the money on my own layer house. Construction began in December 2022, and the first order for point-of-lay Hy-line Silver Brown hens was placed in January 2023. They have a productive lifespan of about 80 to 90 weeks, and an average laying rate of 82%, peaking at 98%.”
Dwayne had a second layer house of the same size built in October 2023. This ensures a continuous supply of eggs to his customers, especially when one of the houses has reached the end of its productive life, its hens are consequently culled, the house is then thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and a fresh batch of point-of-lay hens is brought in.
Making the most of maize
To feed his layer hens, Dwayne invested in a feed mill under the Thenga Rite Maize name. He uses about 35% of his maize harvest to make up about 60% of the birds’ total ration. The remaining ingredients are bought in bulk and mixed with the milled maize to complete the feed.
Dwayne uses some of his maize to produce animal feed that he sells, and continues to bag and market a portion, albeit on a much smaller scale than when he started.
During the May to October period, when maize commodity prices are typically low, Dwayne uses all his maize to feed his birds and produce animal feed. When maize prices typically increase from November to April, he bags more of it for the retail sector.
“Ideally, I’d like to use all my maize for my layers and animal feed, but I’m not sure if expanding my egg enterprise is the right move just yet. Right now, I produce about 10,8 million eggs annually, and buy in just more than 6,2 million eggs. There may come a time when it makes sense to invest in producing those bought-in eggs myself.”
Dwayne is also considering setting up a high-tech facility to turn chicken litter into organic fertiliser. Like many other farmers, he is exploring ways to cut fertiliser costs while improving soil health and productivity – without sacrificing crop yields.
Team effort fuels success
Dwayne now employs six managers and about 50 permanent employees across his different enterprises. Every year, he employs a further 120 people as needed.
“Each and every person in our team has important responsibilities,” he says. “Every cog, no matter how small, is critical to the whole engine. Nobody is less respected than anyone else. Every one of us needs to put food on our own table and help feed the nation.
“Team effort is essential. This is a family; not just a job.”
Enquiries: email drkfarming@gmail.com
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