NEVER GIVE UP!

It had been the best news of her farming career: their application to farm 1 300ha outside Boshof in the Free State was approved. Palesa Moahloli and her husband, Challa, couldn’t wait to move in. “The owners at the time got the shock of their lives when we arrived with our belongings before they had even moved out!” laughs Palesa. One could understand their excitement. “We had been farming chickens and vegetables on a small plot in Bloemfontein and had only 25 cattle running on communal land,” she recalls.

The Boshof farm was leased to them in 2012 under the government’s Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) programme. Eight years later, Palesa, who heads up the cattle operation, has grown the business to a profitable 120-head commercial herd that employs four permanent workers. The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries named her the Free State Female Entrepreneur of 2018, and