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The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) will once again present its National Beef Performers Awards in 2023. This is the 45th instalment of the awards, the aim of which is to showcase the best of the best in seven categories, all relating to beef cattle performance and beef cattle producers. Each of the seven categories is sponsored by various agricultural companies and role-players, and serve to honour those who have excelled in their breeding and production practices, as well as the mentoring of fellow producers.
The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) has been a key stakeholder in these awards since its inception and continues to play this role this year. As of 2022, Plaas Media is the main sponsor of the awards and, as last year, will also be sponsoring certain categories.
KyD Province of the Year Award
This award was introduced in 2016 to celebrate the Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo (KyD) scheme. The scheme provides a comprehensive suite of animal health and production services to our country’s emerging and small-scale beef producers. The scheme is at the service of any emerging/smallholder cattle producer and is operational in all nine provinces.
It focusses strongly on collaboration with emerging smallholder producers, specifically regarding their needs and challenges. The scheme is also involved in the collection of animal performance information and applies it and other scientific methods to select animals that suit the producer’s enterprise. KyD also assists producers in the marketing of their animals and is actively involved in auctions, consulting with producers in this regard.
Emerging producers that are serviced by the scheme are also registered on the Integrated Registration and Genetic Information System (INTERGIS), which is also the national database. This has become a vital tool and platform used to add value to a farming enterprise through the application of technologies aimed at making use of the relevant data, as selection criteria, for a producer’s benefit.
The objective of the KyD Province of the Year Award, sponsored by Molatek, is to recognise the province with the highest number of participating producers in the scheme (KyD). These producers must be registered on INTERGIS and must have loaded data on the database between March of the year preceding the award’s conferring and April of the year in which the award is conferred.
The three provinces with the highest number of participating producers will receive the accolades platinum, gold and silver respectively. The 2023 finalists are:
- KwaZulu-Natal.
- Mpumalanga.
- Northern Cape.
Tune in to the Farm TV YouTube channel on 23 November at 18:00 to see who is this year’s winning province. – Dr Ben Greyling and Frans Jordaan
Read about the other awards categories:
For more information, send an email to Dr Ben Greyling at ben@arc.agric.za or Frans Jordaan at fransj@arc.agric.za. You can also visit the Beef Cattle Improvement Scheme website.
