PROFILE OVERVIEW
Agriculture Grains and dairy farming underpin a diverse and robust sector.
T
he purchase of a 21% stake in BKB by VKB has given the latter company extended geographical reach and opportunities in new markets. While VKB is strongest in the Free State and Limpopo with a grain focus, BKB is well-established in the Eastern Cape, deals mainly in wool and mohair and runs many auctions. VKB is already a diverse group, with the capacity to produce soybean meal and soybean cake, flour and even packaging from its plants, mills and factories. Grain Field Chickens, a large abattoir in Reitz, is one of the company’s biggest facilities in the province. The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), which has a 23% stake in the project, aims to help develop the Free State as the poultry hub of South Africa. VKB’s headquarters are in Reitz in the eastern part of the province and the group has nine brands in sectors such as fuel, grains, animal feed and foods. VKB has development programmes with 51 emerging commercial farmers in the province and data on 140 developing farmers. Not many rural landing strips have to deal with 376 aeroplanes and 63 helicopters in a short space of time. But that’s what Bothaville had to do when it again hosted the country’s largest agricultural FREE STATE BUSINESS 2020
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SECTOR INSIGHT VKB has bought a stake in BKB.
festival, NAMPO Harvest Day, in 2019. Grain SA’s big day had 775 exhibitors catering to 81 345 visitors. The annual Farmer Patent Competition is sponsored by Grain SA and Omnia, the fertiliser company. Bothaville is located in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality on the western boundary of the Free State with North West. So far west is Bothaville that Senwes counts it
