“Communal farming is a struggle, says Zolani Tsheko. “You are dependent on others, and therefore, you can drown with them.”
Tsheko, an educator by training, has been a part-time livestock farmer since 1980 and a full-time farmer since retiring as an accomplished principal in 2015.
“I am trying to apply commercial farming methods as best as I can under challenging communal circumstances. It is very challenging,” he says about his approach to running his 178 Merino sheep and seven cattle in Thornhill near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.
Tsheko was born in the former Transkei region of the Eastern Cape near the