Rum brings rewards for KZN cane producer
As the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Better yet, when you inherit a sugar cane farm, make rum! And that’s exactly what second-generation farmer Brad O’Neill and his wife Marisa are doing at the Sugar Baron Craft Distillery on their family’s farm, Seafield, on the outskirts of Richmond in KwaZulu-Natal.
O’Neill’s father, Roger, bought the farm in 1993, and at that stage the exceptionally fertile land was being used for a mixed farming operation, where Jersey cattle, pigs, sugar cane and timber had been farmed for the previous 49 years. Over time, he converted it into a 100% sugar cane business.
The farm is between 930m and 950m above sea level and covers 293ha, of which 210ha are under sugar cane. The remaining 83ha are taken up by the valley floor, and 40ha of those are utilised as a game reserve, where the family keeps wildebeest, blesbok and zebra.
“We don’t earn an income from the game, but it’s nice to have these animals around,” says O’Neill.
FERTILE LAND
The soil on the farm is amongst the very finest found anywhere,
