There’s something magical about reaching a 100th birthday milestone: an incredible century of memories and experiences! This month we celebrated Wendy Jackson’s 100th birthday!

Founders of the ever-popular annual Stoep Tasting wine weekend, Gordon, and Rose Wright, launched the first Karoo Classique Bubbly Festival in 2021 and in September 2023, they will be hosting the third consecutive event in Graaff Reinet.

This short story began one day in May 2023. My 7-year-old son, Sidney Birkill and I visited Nampo Bothaville Landbou skou, with his grandparents. My parents are farmers and have visited Nampo many times before, but this was Sidney’s first Nampo experience.

The Wheatlands Sportsgrounds was a hive of activity on 12 July as 41 farmworkers from the surrounding area arrived for training.

The public bank of Italy, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), launched their new business matching platform for South African companies in April. As part of the launch, they are hosting a series of themed online events highlighting different sectors.

Farmers lose money if their mohair clip isn’t properly classed, and this is why the farmers must be present during shearing season. The industry faces a huge challenge with a shortage of properly skilled mohair sorters!

The National Agriculture Marketing Council (NAMC) hosted its first section 7 goat committee meeting in Pretoria on Friday, 21 July.

Phil Seal and Daniel Dyson from Seal international were recently in South Africa visiting their mohair buyer, Alice Connacher from Seal and Connacher and to learn more about the South African mohair value chain.

Feel the Yarn launched their first ‘Feel the Green’ event during Milan fashion week which was a combination of B2B (spinners meeting their customers), 6 panel discussions, a trend area, and a student fashion installation.

Karen Eybers is a farmer’s wife, a mother, and a teacher at the local school in Rietbron and her story started in August 2021.

It is exciting to see the increase in requests for the SAMGA and MET team to do on farm training with the farmers and the farm workers.

The FTY New York event, offered the ideal platform of us to engage with the brands in a small and beautiful space.

Karoo Angoras & Nelspoort Merino’s proudly presented their 4th annual production sale at Baakensrug, Nelspoort on February 8, 2023.

History was made when four of the oldest Angora studs in the world, Martyrsford Angoras est 1871, Borden Angoras est 1898, Thorn Park Angoras est 1876 and Wheatlands Angoras est 1849, came together at one venue for the first time and offered their top Angora rams.

Traditionally the countries importing the most mohair tops from South Africa are Italy, China, and the UK and 2022 was no different.

The South African mohair industry currently has six buyers purchasing mohair on the 14 official mohair auctions.

We are living in a time where extraordinary things happen, and this is no surprise anymore. On the 18th of January 2023 an extraordinary thing happened at the Willowmore showgrounds, Eastern Cape where the VAN HASSELT Angora ram sale (with guest sellers) took place.

As we know, Italy is a major destination for our mohair tops and while a lot is consumed by the Italian spinners, these yarns are used by many top and medium end brands around the world.

By comparison to the 2021 season, kids were 2% less of the composition of the 2022 clip in 2022.

The Mohair Council of America (MCA) welcomed and spoilt us from the moment we landed in San Angelo, Texas. It was humbling and heart-warming as we visited a few ranches and their passion for their goats is visible and their love for the mohair industry is enormous.