Farming on wheels, done just right!

Farming in the Karoo can be challenging, thanks to the heat, the drought and the large expanses of farmland where most farmers rear small stock for wool or meat.

Sometimes getting to the farm requires the opening and closing of dozens of farm gates, and the unforgiving terrain lends itself to long, dusty treks on foot to inspect animals, water and grazing.

Now imagine doing all that without the use of your legs.

Pulling up to the house on Veerenkraal Farm, you can spot Sarel Hayward approaching you from the sheds where he is repairing farm equipment.

He greets you with an outstretched hand and a warm smile in the battered wheelchair from which he runs his farm.

“Pardon me for not getting up,” he says with a chuckle.

Hayward, 40, has been farming near Steytlerville full time for the last two years.

He bought the farm years before, but a career as an agricultural economist kept him in the city and prevented him from truly following his passion for the Karoo, the veld and the herds of merino sheep that he rears.

When asked if working and living on the farm with his disability was not too difficult, he said his life was a gift that he was determined not to squander.

“When I was four years old I lived in Durban with my family.

“We were driving over a bridge one day and a drunk driver forced our car off the road and my father lost control.

“I was the only one to survive the accident.”

Besides being orphaned, Hayward sustained extensive injuries which included a broken pelvis in three places.

At the tender age of four, he had to learn to walk again and his uncle, who farmed near Steytlerville, adopted him.

And so started his life in the Karoo.

In October 2007 tragedy struck a second time, on an eventful morning on the farm where he grew up.

A farmworker’s wife went into labour in the early hours of the morning.

Due to a bad signal they were unable to call for an ambulance and Hayward delivered the baby.

Afterwards he went to church, and on his way back to his adopted parents’ house for Sunday lunch, he lost control of his bakkie.

“I had travelled that road thousands of times, but that day I wasn’t paying attention.

“About 600m from the house the bakkie rolled.

“Workers nearby heard the crash and notified my parents, who had to rush me to hospital themselves. There we found out I had broken my neck and back.”

The road to recovery was long, but those who know Hayward can attest to his stubborn nature and his unwillingness to give up on any task before him.

“I already survived this once. Why should I stay down this time?”

All over the farm he has taken steps to accommodate his disability.

All his vehicles are equipped with a special lever that allows him to accelerate and brake with his hands, and many of his camps have sliding gates, rather than swing gates, that he can open through his bakkie window.

Between his house and sheds is a large concrete slab, and all his kraals have cement paths around them.

He also uses drones to check water levels in dams in hard-to-reach places around the farm.

However, he is not shy to grab his wheelchair from the back seat, swing down from behind the wheel, and ride into the veld when his merinos need him.

And his two herding dogs, Rocky and Blits, are never far behind.

His wife, Gerda, said in the years they had been together she could think of only three occasions when he had asked for her help because of his disability.

She said she was in constant awe of how capable he was despite his physical limitations.

“He doesn’t realise how much of an inspiration he is to everyone around him, especially me.

“Whenever I think there is something I can’t do, I just think of all the obstacles he has overcome and it fuels me to achieve more,” she said.

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