Book of South African - Book of Women - Mail & Guardian

Visit the Vlaklaagte farming area
outside Swartruggens in the North
West Province on any New Year’s
day and you will find the entire
community occupied with boeresport
(farmers’ games) — jukskei, driebeenresies,
kruiwastoot and toutrek — a scene that seems
to contradict farming’s increasing association
with insecurity, racial conflict and murder.
No single person cements an agricultural
community but there are those without whom
the community bond would be tenuous and,
in Vlaklaagte, that person is Hanna van der Walt,
cattle farmer and chair of the local farm watch.
Van der Walt was born in 1961 in Gobabis,
Namibia — cattle country, or at least that’s
what’s written on the sign that accompanies the
statue of a Brahman at the entrance to the town.
When she was four her family moved to
Wildebeesheuwel, a farm near Swartruggens,
hanna van der walt
Cattle farmer
and there Hanna developed her passion for
cattle farming. She was, she says, her father’s
“little shadow; he taught me valuable lessons,
not only in farming but in life, in humanity”. In
1984 she bought seven head of cattle from
her father and today she runs a 200-strong
herd, a business that near-neighbour Stephan
Naudé says requires passion, nerve and faith,
attributes that also serve Van der Walt well in
her role as chair of the Vlaklaagte Farm Watch.
The farm watch was formed in 1994, the end of
a political era that had favoured white farmers. In
the area surrounding Swartruggens the collapse
of rural security coincided with increased mining
activity to produce a surge in crime.
In 1998 Van der Walt and her family were
attacked while driving home after a rugby game.
Shots were fired, one of which struck her daughter
in the leg. Fellow farmers responded quickly
and caught the assailants, but Van der Walt,
realising that more could be done to improve
security in the area, took over as chairperson of
the farm watch. It soon became apparent that
she had a gift for community mobilisation and
an aptitude for the security work itself.
With Van der Walt at the helm there hasn’t
been a single violent farm attack in Vlaklaagte
for 13 years and, thanks to the relationships she
has fostered with local and provincial police,
80% of all farm crimes are solved.
True to character, Van der Walt credits the
community — “I’ve done nothing on my
own” — and quietly accounts for her own
inexhaustible drive with a heart-breaking story.
“My son died, aged 16, of Fanconi anaemia,
and when he was lying on his death bed I
asked him how he could love Jesus if he could
not see him. He replied by saying that by
loving your neighbour, you love him — these
words of his give me power to keep going.”
Book of South AfrICAn women 2012 17