Black Bush rice, cattle farmers want state help to end land feuding

The state of the dams in the kokerite savannahs is a major headache for the movement of cattle to market. In picture is cattle farmer Peter Crawford

Black Bush Polder is, simultaneously, a major rearer of both rice and cattle. The two have shared the community’s vast agricultural lands though, the residents say, the relationship has been an uneasy one.

Cattle and rice are ‘joined at the hip,’ so to speak, thrown together by the need on either side to utilize vast areas of land. As many of the Black Bush residents see it, co-existence is difficult if not impossible. Sometimes, differences between the two sides transform into open conflict.

Kamaldai Williams and her two sons Elvis and Moses are cattle farmers.