After waiting four months for his first egg to be laid, Francois Maree, 19, now operates an egg farm by himself that produces 400 eggs per day in just three months after the first lay.
Maree matriculated in Bethlehem last year with five distinctions.
While growing up on an apple farm where his father is employed, he remembers wanting to be a farmer since he was a small boy.
“I remember in Grade 3, other children wanted to be doctors. I wanted to be a farmer. But I just never knew how to do it and we didn’t own any land,” he told TimesLIVE.
When he was in Grade 8, his neighbour Danie Slabbert, who practices regenerative farming, sparked a passion in Maree, who used his spare time outside school to work with Slabbert on his farm.
After matriculating last year, he was accepted by the North West University to study a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Agronomy and Agricultural Economics. He decided to decline the offer.
“I realised studying would make me a soil specialist or agricultural specialist and not a farmer. I realised I will learn how to farm by farming. I cancelled all of it and used the [money saved for] my university fees to buy a small broiler operation for chickens.”
Maree said this evolved into his new farm, RegenRoots, which launched in May.
He said his parents felt his decision was risky, as this was something new and he had no backup plan at the time. “Also, not a lot of people did this. But they supported me fully and without them, it wouldn’t have been possible. I work every day and when I decide to take a day off and I ask my father for help, he helps me. They back me, 100%.
“Slabbert helped with the way of doing it… If I wanted eggs, I would need three big barns. Instead, I built a cheap trailer and I was able to farm in a regenerative way."
His hens are raised on pasture instead of locked in a barn. They sleep in a trailer where they also lay their eggs while surrounded by electric netting.
The chickens are then moved every two days to give the soil a chance to regenerate and a chance for the hens to “scratch for grass and worms”. That is where the regeneration part comes in, he told TimesLIVE.
“There is grass and bugs and nature, nothing can replace that. The grass and bugs have nutrients which go into the eggs that other hens would not get. The feed is different, as it is non-GMO ration of chicken feed. It is also soy-free and has no antibiotics. The difference between pasture-raised eggs and conventional eggs is in the nutrients, and the results speak for themselves.”
As a young and inexperienced farmer, he faced challenges and frustrations, particularly when it came to finding the correct feed for his pasture-raised hens. Maree has no employees and operates the farm on his own.
“The big thing about this operation is that I mix my own feed. The biggest challenge in this whole thing is getting specialists to work out a feed ration. It’s not easy when it comes to soy-free feed to find a specialist, as we don’t use the same feed as conventional chicken farmers. I eventually found one, but I also did a lot of work myself to get to the perfect ration,” he said.
Four months later, in September, Maree’s hen produced its first eggs. He started with 600 chickens, 40 of which have since died, but his hens now produce about 400 eggs per day.
“Some challenges include being behind schedule. For example, last week my eggs dropped back to 300, and I didn’t know what happened. I worked out that the amount of feed was not enough, so my eggs are now picking up again.
“Another example would be when the guys I get packaging from are behind and I can’t sell. For example, they have closed for the festive season. It’s these challenges that I wouldn’t get from university. University wouldn’t have taught me how to phone the packaging supplier to hurry with the packaging, or how to go to 10 different nutritional specialists.”
The eager young farmer introduced the world to his product on social media in October.
The last thing he expected was to gain popularity for his thick Afrikaans accent due to the hard roll of the letter R. By December, his Instagram and Facebook pages had nearly 40,000 followers in total in just two months.
“The responses have been amazing. I have a lot of followers, which I didn’t expect at all. I didn’t expect them to comment on my English. I speak really good English where I am from. I decided not to take it negatively and used it as a marketing tool,” he said in his thick Afrikaans accent.
RegenRoots now delivers its pasture-raised eggs weekly to Johannesburg and Pretoria through Slabbert’s farm, Sewe Slabbert, which specialises in meat and chicken meat.
“It is great to have Danie in my life. I wouldn’t have been where I am if it weren’t for him. Danie is one of the big experts in regenerative farming in South Africa. He is the one who taught me about regenerative farming and what it is, and it opened a new world for me.”
Maree has ambitions of expanding his farming to include meat, chicken meat and various livestock and crops. In the meantime, he has decided to study BCom Business Management online.
“I am really positive about this and the whole ‘healthy’ market. There are a lot of people looking into healthier food, and a lot of people running scams. Many people are doing the right thing, and we need to teach the market about it. Right now, it is more of a premium product, but I think it should be mainstream and that all eggs should be produced like this. That would be super cool,” said Maree.
TimesLIVE