08 Feb 2017

Talana Farms located in the Northern Tuli Block, at the confluence of Limpopo and Motloutse River is diversifying its operations from horticulture and agronomy to include tourism and crocodile farming.

A young Motswana, Ms Lembie Mmereki who is one of the partners at Talana Farms said besides farming where over 500 hectares of land was under irrigation to produce cash crops, they were venturing into tourism to diversify operations.

She said plans were underway to build a lodge and camp site at the farm.

Ms Mmereki said a crocodile farming project was due to start before the first half of 2017, where the first batch of about 2 000 crocodiles would be purchased from Durban at a cost of P2.5 million.

Out of the 2 000 crocodiles, 200 would be mature crocodiles or breeding stock and the rest, three-months-old crocodiles for rearing and later culling to harvest skin for export to Europe.

She said they were constructing ponds at the farm to host the crocodiles. “These are not that expensive but need to be done carefully and according to specifications,” she said.

For his part Mr Pieter Diedericks, a crocodile farmer in South Africa and partner at Talana Farms said since the farm was venturing into tourism, crocodile farming would attract many visitors.

He explained that they were targeting Italy, where there was a demand for the skin to make ladies hand bags.

He stated that crocodile farming was a luxury farming project for the rich in Europe and good money would be made from the project.

He furtehr said there was a lucrative market for the reptile meat in China, Japan and other Asian countries.

The meat is very expensive and in most instances found in expensive hotels. Crocodile tail meat is said to be popular among sumo wrestlers in Japan due its high protein conten

He said the quantity produced, distance to the coast and transport of the meat was expensive. ENDS