Ramaphosa’s annual Ankole and Boran cattle auction earns R15m

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Ntaba Nyoni cattle auction at his Phala Phala farm near Bela-Bela in Limpopo at the weekend earned almost R15m in sales.

It was the seventh annual auction for Ramaphosa’s Ntaba Nyoni Ankole cattle stud. He also had cattle from his Boran stud on sale on the day.

The auction included some lots from other breeders, but the highest-selling animals were all from the president’s Ankole herd.

The top-selling lot was a 3-in-1 female (a pregnant cow with a calf at foot), which was sold for R1.8m to Zimbabwean cattle breeder Collen Tafireyi from Sinyo Boran & Ankole.

The second-highest price paid was R1m for a female animal carrying an embryo that will introduce new Ankole genetics into the SA market. The lot was purchased by Rohan Meintjies from Sterkfontein Farms, a large, diversified farming business in Gauteng.

The top prices paid for cows were generally much higher than the R280,000 top price paid for an Ankole bull at the auction.

JP Smith, the COO of auction business Veilingswinkel, which includes host of the Ntaba Nyoni auction Veewinkel, said it was not unusual for female animals to fetch higher prices than bulls.

“The quality of females on offer at the auction was superior; the bulls on auction were young and still developing. Top bulls will come in the future,” he said.

Ramaphosa was the main driver behind a project that started in 2004 to import Ankole cattle from Uganda, from where they originate. 

The demand for Ankole cattle in SA remained strong and breeders had been investing in top genetics, said Smith. In addition, the market was growing with new breeders joining at a steady pace. This was evident at Ramaphosa’s auction because not only established breeders were there, but also several new buyers attended and participated, he said.

At Ramaphosa’s production auction in 2021 his brother-in-law, Patrice Motsepe, one of SA’s richest people and the founder and executive chair of diversified mining company African Rainbow Minerals, paid R2.1m for a stud female. That same year, an Ankole bull sold for R3m at an auction by Twin City Game breeders.

erasmusd@businesslive.co.za