Be better today than yesterday

“It’s an honour to have been named the 2026 Western Cape Farmer of the Year by the Agricultural Writers SA’s Xhariep region, but it is actually not mine,” says Stephan Beukes of Dennegeur Farms. Gerrit Rautenbach investigated.

If you ask Stephan why he became a pome-fruit farmer in the Elgin district, he answers quickly. “It’s hereditary, and it is what I love doing. I grew up with apples, but no one forced me into farming it.  I am the third generation on this spot, but some of the Beukes clans have been around for six generations. My grandpa Sas Beukes acquired the original farm in 1948; my dad Josias took over from him in 1973, and over almost a decade, from 2010, he coached me into taking over as CEO of the business in 2019.

“The wonderful thing about succession in a family business is to ensure that enough structures are created over time to make the difficult conversations easier. Structures that can protect the investment. Dennegeur started off on 50 ha with Grandpa, and today the business runs just over 800 ha, made up of over a dozen title deeds within the Dennegeur company,” begins Stephan’s good story.

Stephan reasoned that the only way forward is success, and to succeed, you have to be relevant. To be relevant, you need scale. That means being effective in what you do. Because clients out there can choose with which producers they prefer to do business. If you want to be the preferred supplier, you have to be relevant enough to make it worth it for the client. Profitability is driven by effectiveness. And effectiveness relies on precision, which is Stephan’s focus.

All the farms in the Dennegeur company are adjoining, but in 2022 an opportunity arose to acquire Vredenhof, a standalone 30 ha unit on the northern side of the N2 highway. It’s not too far away, with good soil that produces good apples.

On 23 September 2023, the biggest disaster struck the business. This was in the form of over 250 mm of rain in 24 hours. Dam walls were shattered. Roads disappeared. Much infrastructure, like pumps, was gone. An extremely well-organised farming set-up became a heap overnight. Most fortunately, only two hectares of orchard went downstream.

“Luckily, I pre-arranged with some earth-moving guys the night before to have some of those yellow grinders available, which I had operating the next morning. This was a fortunate foresight. The most critical thing was deciding what we should fix first to save the ship. Most importantly, we needed fungal control as soon as possible. I had helicopters on standby at an astronomical cost should we not be able to do it on the ground.

“However, the team made it happen with hand-held spray pumps and by reversing the tractors in between the rows, before going out again, spraying. Because you could only get in on one side, the other side was blocked. It really tested the drivers’ capabilities, but whoever did what, everybody gave 100% to help overcome the crisis. These guys were good. The most important of all is that there was no loss of life or any serious injuries. And there was nobody that didn’t pull more than their weight to save Dennegeur,” Stephan says with pride.

Because of how Stephan handled this nature-driven crisis, how he and his team got Dennegeur back on track, and Dennegeur’s unique farming strategy, he received the 2026 Western Cape Farmer of the Year award from Agricultural Writers SA’s Xhariep region. But he has something to say about that.

“This award is not mine. When you hit a crisis, you test your resilience. It’s how your whole team works together with a shared vision to overcome that crisis. The flood tested our resilience. Without this team, Dennegeur would have drowned. And the way they never lost focus on the actual farming side was remarkable. This award is for all of them,” Stephan concludes.

Although the damage was frightening, not a single permanent worker of the 180 was made redundant. And production got back on track, ensuring work for just as many seasonal workers during harvest. Many households didn’t go hungry. The flood happened on 23 September 2023, and remarkably on exactly the same day in 2024, they took ownership of the neighbouring farm, Applethwaite, instantly doubling their capacity to over 800 ha.

“The question then was, what we did on the smaller Dennegeur, can we duplicate it on this new scale? This was almost as much of a test of our resilience as the event exactly a year ago,” Stephan explained before he got up to go and get a miniature wooden table standing in the boardroom where we sat.

This miniature table is his metaphor for how he sees the process of producing and selling awesome apples. The table’s surface represents the values that hold the pillars of success together. The values are passion, integrity, ownership, trust and compassion, with the pillars being high-quality tonnage, effectiveness, being the preferred supplier and your people. There, the table for success is set.

“This table is to me the definition of our culture. And the thing is, you cannot force culture; you have to get buy-in. It’s all about building an environment of trust, and you can mobilise people when you put them in a place of emotional safety. Shared values remove hierarchies. As CEO, I must answer to the same values as every worker at Dennegeur,” he elaborates.

Most importantly, Stephan and the Dennegeur team aim to care for the next generation, the next leaders, through communication and conflict management. It is part of their culture and ingrained in their character to care for their people. That is why they created the Dennegeur Foundation, focusing on personal development. This is where the thought of “be better today than yesterday” comes to life. It will always be a valid principle, but it is hard to follow. Yet, that’s the only way to move forward, reckons Stephan. Wherever you go on Dennegeur, you will see the slogan. Be better today than yesterday. On their trucks, packhouses, everywhere. It’s their mantra.

Looking after everyone on Dennegeur goes back to 1956, when Stephan’s granddad and his brother donated part of the farm to the church for a school that still operates today under the Western Cape Education Department. This sowed the seed of what was to come, and in 2019 they formally established the Dennegeur Foundation as a public benefit organisation to help all their people be better today than yesterday. The foundation manages all their social development.

“The success of an operation like this is that the company and the foundation have to be running in sync like two gears not gnashing. One supports the work the other does. In both directions. My sister, Carina van Wyk, is the CEO of the foundation; then there are two independent board members, and the others are all farm workers.

“Today the Dennegeur Foundation provides help and support in a multitude of ways. A creche and aftercare, a youth centre, social work and mental health services, rural arts network, a cooking program, senior skills-building, needlework, a clinic, outdoor gymnasium, cycling program, men’s and women’s programs and the fynbos restoration nursery.”

But wait, there’s more. When Dennegeur acquired the farm Vredenhof, they also inherited The Elgin Country Lodge guest house. The foundation was the perfect host to manage this pristine tourist attraction. To experience this great stayover, contact elgincountrylodge@breede.co.za. For more information on Dennegeur, visit dennegeur.co.za.