FAST FACTS
Eksteenskuil Agricultural Co-operative helps members with their administration and to apply for production aid.
Farmers can rent equipment from the co-operative at a minimal fee.
Farmers who receive grants are asked to plough 5% of the amount back into the community.
The Eksteenskuil community originated in the early 1920s, when the first families settled on about 2 000ha in the Lower Orange River region, near Keimoes in the Northern Cape.
The area, which has about 630ha under flood irrigation from the Orange River, initially splintered into about 200 small plots, but by the 1970s these had been consolidated into 147 plots, of about 3,9ha each.
Filomaine Schwartz, office manager of the Eksteenskuil Agricultural Co-operative, says government allocated the land to community members in 2003, but about 47 of the original 250 title deeds still need to be transferred.
“Without title deeds, many of our members are
