He was once Nelson Mandela’s right-hand man and managed
intense union negotiations at a critical point in our country’s history.
He was at the forefront of negotiations that helped South
Africa ease into a democratic era and more recently he survived a bruising election
battle to claim the top seat of the ruling ANC. Yet ask Cyril Ramaphosa what
his proudest achievement is and the answer has nothing to do with politics –
and everything to do with a herd of cattle that roam the fertile lands near
Badplaas in Mpumalanga.
It’s here the president of SA feels most at home. The place
where he can walk in his farmer’s uniform of long pants and khaki shirt without
being followed by bodyguards. This is a place where he could follow in the
footsteps of his father, Samuel Mundzhedzi Ramaphosa, who once looked after his
father and uncle’s cattle on the open plains of Khalavha in Venda.
His farm, Ntaba Nyoni, is where you’ll find one of his
most-prized possessions: his beloved Ankole cattle herd. Ramaphosa’s home away
from home is an impressive 5 100-hectare farm protected by a massive entrance
gate with four cement eagles mounted at the top.
“The farm is his world,” an acquaintance of the president,
who lives in the area, tells us. The homestead is surrounded by palm trees and
filled with feed troughs for Bonsmara and Boran cattle. Ramaphosa visits the
farm at least once a month. He hasn’t slept in the four bedroom home for at
least four years because of his busy schedule but he always makes time to visit
his cattle, which he’s said are as “precious to me [as] my own children”.
Ramaphosa first fell in love with the Ankole breed of cattle
when he saw them in Uganda in 2004 while visiting President Yoweri Museveni’s
farm. The Banyankole people of Uganda call them “the king’s cattle”. “Down
below were magnificent creatures that simply astonished me,” he writes in
Cattle of the Ages: Stories and Portraits of the Ankole Cattle of Southern
Africa, his photographic book about Ankole cattle released last year.
“They each had long, white, beautiful horns glinting in the
African sun, and I suddenly became fixated and couldn’t stop looking at them. I
was intrigued and in awe and fell in love with these creatures immediately.” So
transfixed was Ramaphosa with these cattle he brought the breed to South
Africa, and he’s now the single biggest Ankole farmer in the country.
His love for the animals is well-documented in the book,
where he details just how precious the beasts with their striking horns are to
him. He has names for each – ranging from Thanyani, which means beautiful, to
Dembe, which means miracle.
In addition to the
farm, Ramaphosa has a butchery and an abattoir in town. “He’s someone who
really cares about his fellow humans,” one of the neighbours says. “When my
children were small and we’d see him he’d always say hello to the kids first.
“He’d ask them about their schoolwork. Then he’d greet my wife, and finally
he’d say hello to me.”
Western Cape farmer Nico Lerm, who also farms Ankole, says
Ramaphosa is clearly a grounded man.
When they met at the first meeting of the Ankole Breeders
Society in Centurion in February he had no airs and graces about him. “When
Cyril arrived at the meeting he told his bodyguards to stay outside,” Nico
recalls. “Then he greeted everyone, turned around and made himself coffee. Then
he asked if anyone else would like some. He made coffee for nearly everyone at
the meeting.” Nico was so taken with the new president he bought a bull from
him and named it Ramaphosa. Nico breeds Ankole mainly for hunting purposes
“because their impressive horns are so sought after by hunters”. And it’s those
magnificent horns Ramaphosa wanted to capture in his photographic book. What
makes this breed so interesting, says Ramaphosa’s farm manager, Kobus Rall, is
that their horns are hollow.
This allows the animals to regulate their body temperature.
The horns contain a system of blood vessels where blood is cooled before it’s
circulated back into the body. As we walk around the farm a bakkie pulls up. A
man in a yellow T-shirt gets out, smiling. He introduces himself as Randy
Cangale and says he’s in charge of Ramaphosa’s herd.
“Cyril is like a father to me,” he adds. “After school he
took me under his wing. He saw my potential when I was farming on my own
smallholding in Badplaas.” Randy’s big dream was to study agriculture – a dream
Ramaphosa helped to make come true. Today Randy proudly holds a degree in
animal science and plant production.
Becoming the biggest Ankole farmer in South Africa wasn’t an
easy task, even for someone accustomed to tackling tough challenges. The
president’s first calf was born about 14 years ago and luckily he’d bought his
farm in 2001, before he’d fallen in love with the breed. Ramaphosa wanted to
import the animals directly from Uganda in 2004 but the department of
agriculture, forestry and fisheries at the time didn’t give him permission as
they believed Uganda didn’t have a sufficient cattle disease control programme.
He wouldn’t give up though and bought 43 of Museveni’s cattle and moved them to
Ol Pejeta in Kenya.
There he and Dr Morné de la Rey, a veterinarian and the
director of Embryo Plus, artificially inseminated his cows. The embryos were
brought to South Africa and inserted into Bonsmara and Boran cows. And a few
months later he was the proud papa of his first Ankole calf. Today Ramaphosa is
one of 13 farmers in South Africa who breed these beasts and he couldn’t be
happier about it.
“There are many things I’m intensely passionate about: my
country and its people, my family, education and youth empowerment,
fly-fishing, the African National Congress and economic transformation –
particularly the development of small and medium enterprises,” he writes in his
book.
“Little did I know, however, that there was a space in my
heart for one thing more.” The animals mean a great deal to him. “Their
spiritual effect on me is to remind me of the immense importance of gratitude
and contentment in the here and now.”
