{"id":886,"date":"2018-10-02T10:59:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T08:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=886"},"modified":"2018-11-28T12:53:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T10:53:51","slug":"pieter-and-marisa-building-a-successful-future-at-nuwepos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=886","title":{"rendered":"Pieter and Marisa: building a successful future at Nuwepos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Pieter and Marisa Krynauw, with their children – six-year-old Sonia-Mari and nine-year-old Pieter-Johann.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Improving farming, planting more table grape vines, increasing workers\u2019 housing, and improvements to cr\u00e8che facilities are all high on the agenda for\u00a0 Pieter Krynauw, the new farm manager at Nuwepos, SAFE\u2019s new farm near Vanrhynsdorp on the Olifants River.<\/p>\n

Pieter\u2019s wife, Marisa, will be at his side, as Compliance Officer, responsible for overseeing Fairtrade and BRC (British Retail Consortium) accreditation on the farm.<\/p>\n

Pieter had been Production Manager at the farm, Mont Piquet, in Piketberg, for a number of years before moving with his family to Nuwepos earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Originally from Wellington, Pieter began his life as a farmer growing table grapes in the Boland. He qualified at the Boland Agricultural School after studying agriculture at Worcester College.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been farming table grapes for 18 years,” he said, “and adapting to conditions at Vanrhynsdorp won’t be that difficult.<\/p>\n

“The growing season here is shorter than what I am used to from my years of farming in Wellington due to the extremely high temperatures, however, the grapes are under netting which protects the vines from the heat \u2013 and the birds,” he remarks with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started here at the beginning of September and am aware of the challenges that face me, but I am looking forward to meeting them,\u201d says Pieter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see my family will be happy here and I am delighted that Marisa will be part of the business.\u201d The couple has two children \u2013 Pieter-Johann (9) and six-year-old Sonia-Mari.<\/p>\n

\u201cNuwepos boasts 106ha of table grapes, of which 9ha are new varietals. They also have 4.5ha raisin producing grapes as well as 650 White Dorper ewes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the drought is well and truly behind us, we will increase the number of sheep to around 1 000.<\/p>\n

“Although we have had good rains so far this year, our farm dams are still only about 50% full, which is well below average. We have enough water for this coming season, but more rain will be welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pieter says there are aggressive plans for development in the pipeline for Nuwepos. These include another 50ha to be planted as table grapes, expansion of the pack houses, and more housing for staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present, we can accommodate about 320 people on the farm, but we will be building hostels to increase the capacity to 450 or so in the near future.”<\/p>\n

The existing cr\u00e8che facilities will also be expanded to accommodate the young children of the increased staff complement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also busy implementing a new automated drinking water purification system, which will provide ample high-quality drinking water for the whole farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pieter says he enjoys SAFE\u2019s policy of allowing farm managers to run “their” \u00a0farms in their own way, with support from head office, \u2013 but provided they “deliver results.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me,\u201d says Pieter, “it is important that everything we do is sustainable in the long term. That’s why I am excited about being here; we are building our future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Improving farming, planting more table grape vines, increasing workers\u2019 housing, and improvements to cr\u00e8che facilities are all high on the agenda for\u00a0 Pieter Krynauw, the new farm manager at Nuwepos, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}