There are few things that get the rural heart of SA beating faster than the sight of prized bulls and cows selling for eye-watering sums at live auctions. The excitement reaches even greater heights when the seller is not just a farmer but also the president of the country, and the buyer is not just his brother-in-law but also one of SA’s richest mining moguls.
The bringing together of these parts culminated in a record-breaking cattle auction for President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday.
He earned about R10m from the sale of animals from his Ntaba Nyoni Ankole, Boran and Bonsmara studs, as well as a few hundred thousand rand for commercial Boran and Bonsmara cattle sold at the auction.
The biggest spender on the day was Patrice Motsepe, brother of SA’s first lady, Tshepo Motsepe. He bought four Ankole females for a total of R4.7m.
Motsepe, the founder and executive chair of diversified mining company African Rainbow Minerals, paid a handsome R2.1m for one of Ramaphosa’s Ankole stud females. This was a new SA record price for a female of any cattle breed sold on auction. The record-breaking heifer, called Fafa, is three-and-a-half years old and carrying her first calf. Fafa is described as an “excellent heifer with an iconic horn shape”.
Ramaphosa owns the largest registered stud herd of Ankole cattle in the world and he was the main driver behind a project that started in 2004 to import the cattle breed from Uganda, from where they originate.
Over the past six years, demand for Ankole cattle in SA has been on a steady rise, and breeders have been paying hefty eye-watering prices for top bulls and cows. They are particularly popular among game breeders, who buy them as a tourist attraction and for hunting.
At the National Ankole Auction in 2021, Ramaphosa sold nine animals for R2.7m. At this sale an eight-year-old Ankole bull was sold for an SA record price of R3m by Johan Visagie, MD of Twin City Game Breeders, to Pieter Ernst senior of Bona Bona Game Breeders.
Ramaphosa’s cattle are kept on his 5,100ha Ntaba Nyoni farm in Mpumalanga.
His Ankole cattle were the stars of the show on Saturday, but some of the Boran cattle on auction also sold for respectable prices. One Boran cow was sold for R400,000 to Hurwitz Farming in Davel, home of the largest Boran stud herd in the world.
The auction was hosted by Vleissentraal Ermelo in collaboration with online auction company SwiftVEE, to allow for in-person and remote bidding.
Ramaphosa’s farming interests include game-breeding and he has received criticism in the past for his participation in multimillion-rand auctions.
In 2012, before he became deputy president of the ANC and then later of the country, Ramaphosa apologised for bidding R18m on a buffalo (which sold to another bidder for R20m). This was just after the Marikana tragedy in which 34 mineworkers were killed during a strike. The miners, who were protesting for better wages, worked at Lonmin platinum mine, where Ramaphosa was a director at the time.
Even though Ramaphosa appeared in casual dress on Saturday and not in his official capacity as president, SA’s transformation featured strongly on the agenda.
The sale started with the auctioning of a “transformation lot”, the proceeds of which will be used to establish a fund aimed at “speeding up transformation in agriculture”. The “transformation lot” — miniature sculptures of an Ankole made from gold and silver — was bought by Motsepe for R1.5m.
Update: March 7 2022
This article was updated with additional information.
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