The Blocuso community was formed more than 60 years ago after the Congregational Church bought the farms Bloemsmond, Curriescamp and Soverby near Keimoes in the Orange River Valley. The church divided the land into small irrigation plots, renting them out to local community members for wheat, lucerne and cotton production.
(The name Blocuso is derived from a combination of the first two letters of these farms.)
In 2000, the government helped the community to buy the farms from the church for just under R7,5 million through the Settlement Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG). Since then, it has invested more than R74 million to unlock more value for the community from this land.
How did the community motivate these investments? Dirk Claassen, financial manager of Blocuso Landgoed, pays tribute to the visionary leaders of the community.
"Our leaders lobbied for the development of the land because they realised it would have a much bigger socio-economic impact than
