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CHAPTER 6
WHEN YOU THINK BACK
ABOUT PEOPLE IT IS
ALWAYS DIFFICULT TO
SINGLE SOMEONE OUT.
HOWEVER, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE
NOT TO MENTION THE
THREE MUSKETEERS FROM
BLOEMFONTEIN, MOOS
HADDAD, HANNES VAN WYK
AND GEORGE STEGMANN,
AND THEIR SPOUSES. THEY
WERE THE ONES WITH THE
GREAT IDEA (OF A HARVEST
DAY) IN 1966.
– Mr Dennis von Abo,
Harvest Day Director; 1983.
These three musketeers, whose farms bordered one another north of Bloemfontein,
suited the action to the words, and on 7 and 8 June 1967 the first SAMPI Harvest
Day was held on Donkerhoek – Van Wyk’s farm – near Bloemfontein. A total of eight
exhibitors took part and 203 people attended. This modest beginning was the start
of a agriculture-focused, needs-driven agricultural trade show that grew steadily,
and in 2016 it accommodated 685 exhibitors and 75 116 visitors.
‘We started the Harvest Day because we wanted to bring farmers and the manufac-
turers of implements together. For maize farmers the sixties was a time of transi-
tion to large-scale mechanisation and the bulk handling of grains. There was a real
need to view tractors and implements on a larger scale than when only one com-
pany demonstrated its products on your farm,’ Van Wyk told
Mielies/Maize
(the
predecessor of
SA Graan/Grain
) in the April 1989 issue. The dream was to create a
platform where suppliers of mechanisation implements and producers could meet
one another so that informed production and purchasing decisions could be made.
Van Wyk also said that it was really tough going to organise the first Harvest Day.
Tractor and implement manufacturers had to be convinced to take part. Eventually
eight companies agreed and Lister provided a generator.
Regional harvest days followed
Haddad’s farm, Hopefield, was selected as the base for SAMPI’s Harvest Day from
1968. As Hopefield was situated next to the Bloemfontein/Bultfontein tarred road,
its better accessibility was probably the reason why the Harvest Day was held
there until 1972.
MECHANISATION EXHIBITORS DURING THE FIRST
HARVEST DAY IN 1967
1. Malcomess
2. Sentraalwes Koöperatiewe Maatskappy
3. International Harvester
4. John Deere
5. John Roderick & Southy
6. Lambons
7. Lifa
8. Mangolds
A framed version of the first Harvest Day’s
poster hangs in the administrative offices
at NAMPO Park.
One of the earliest Harvest Days as seen from the air – around 1969.
“
”