The town of Bothaville in the Free State would be yet another South African platteland dorp, but for two records it holds.
I’ve personally witnessed one of them – the world’s largest private collection of Datsun and Nissan vehicles, more than 110 at last count.
The only place with a more representative display of the history of the Japanese marque – going back to the 1930s – is Nissan’s own museum in Yokohama, Japan.
I’ve been there a few times over the past few years while my own old Datsun was being restored by Freek de Kock and his team. For a petrolhead, like me, the place is breathtaking.
But Bothaville is also the venue for what is said to be the biggest agricultural show in the southern hemisphere (take that, Australia!), the annual Grain SA Harvest Day… known to most as Nampo after the founding organisation, the National Maize Producers Organisation.
This year’s four-day event ends today – but not after another world record has been set: the largest single gathering of Toyota Hilux bakkies on the planet.
It’s a great fit because nothing (sorry Ford, Isuzu and Nissan), says SA boer (small b) like a Hilux.
But if you think Nampo is all about khaki bakkies and khaki boere, you’d be wrong. It’s much more.
So many farmers fly in these days that the local airfield has established its own official holding and stacking pattern for the traffic in private planes. The scores of parked aircraft are testimony to the fact that farming is a major part of our economy and that some people are doing very well out of it.
On display is the latest in farming technology – from computerised chicken coop management systems to accounting software (AI is there, too, in some shape or form) and the big implements, like combine harvesters.
These multimillion-rand machines show not only that South Africa stands back for nobody when it comes to agri tech but also that our agriculture sector is increasingly dominated by big players, backed by equipment which automates process and does work more efficiently.
There is a debate about that – it’s good in the one sense because it is efficient, but bad in another because it cuts down on the need for labour.
On the site of the exhibition is a sombre memorial, consisting of nine granite panels, engraved with the names of farmers and their families who have been murdered since 1961.
It is sobering, especially seeing the families who visit it during Nampo, but it is a long way from encapsulating the supposed “white genocide” allegedly decimating the farming community.
Nobody these days wants to admit they perpetuated the myth, but the narrative of white persecution is still top of the conservative agenda, both here and abroad.
Walking around Nampo doesn’t leave any impression of persecution – and some embittered people might say the opposite, that it confirms things have only got better for many white people since 1994.
South Africa’s farmers are a resilient lot – they have to be in a country where their business can be hostage to the weather more times than not. And they’re already taking care of themselves in rural areas with their own security.
Most of the people at Nampo would not see themselves as victims – they don’t have time for that – but, at the same time, South Africa needs to realise they are perhaps the most vital sector in our economy.
And you should never criticise farmers when your mouth is full.
