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Farm to game farm conversions increasing

Cape Town – There was an upward trend in the conversion of conventional farms to game farms, according to a game farm valuator.

Chief Executive of The Valuator Group Gavin Commins said the trend in converting conventional farms to game farms came about when many farmers were battling to make ends meet.

Droughts and adverse market prices have frequently resulted in farmers being overtaken by debt and having to sell, Commins said.

He said distressed farms were sometimes bought out by investors who had awoken to the fact that game farms and game lodges were becoming “the flavour of the month” – and could be very profitable.  

There has also been a general increase in the number of game farms across South Africa.

“We have no reliable figures on which to work but we know that in the early 1980s there were very few game reserves in South Africa outside the traditional areas linked to the Kruger Park. Today ... the figure is ± 2 000 ...the rise has been phenomenal,” Commins said.

In his view game farm breeders have become exceptionally clever in learning how to breed the rarer, more exotic species such as black and red impala and golden wildebeest, which command very high prices.

The industry has drawn some of South Africa’s wealthiest investors including luxury-goods billionaire Johann Rupert and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Rupert, SA’s second-richest person, led a group of investors that paid a record R40m for Mystery, a buffalo with a horn span of more than 135cm, in 2013, Bloomberg reported.

While Ramaphosa made an unsuccessful R19.5m bid for a buffalo cow and calf at a 2012 auction.

ALSO READ: Buffalo horns lure billionaires

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