Welcome to our web site / Introduction

Burkhard Herrmann of Fortress Bonsmaras is a businessman from Johannesburg (Gauteng, RSA). His partner and manager, Guillaume Strydom is a farmer who grew up in the Frankfort area (Free State, RSA) on his own farm Wildedaggakraal.

Business-directed judgement

Burkhard Herrmann, immigrated from Germany to South Africa in 1967 where he established a successful business undertaking. By 1990 his hankering for farm life became so compelling that he decided to purchase the farm Fortress, some 12km north-west of Frankfort, Free State. It is a beautiful farm (2.925 ha) with a river frontage of 17,5km in a horseshoe bend of the Wilge River at the southern tip of the Vaal Dam. Later farms Sweetwater (216 ha east of Frankfort) and Antares (1.705 ha south East of Chrissiesmeer near Ermelo, Mpumalanga) were acquired.

Experts were reluctant to recommend a specific breed of cattle to him, but the late Professor Cas Maree, world-renowned animal husbandry scientist at the University of Pretoria, offered him this advice: If you love your cattle you will succeed with any breed. So he chose Bonsmaras because of the breed's long history of compulsory performance testing, outstanding characteristics and his own confidence that the breed would thrive well in the farm's environment.

Future Vision

Retaining and creating happiness, enthusiasm, hard work and love for detail by a motivated Fortress team, listening to visitors and clients, observing others carefully when visiting their farms .... making friends! To treat "our people, our animals, our soils with respect and try to create a sustainable future". Building a better future for the Fortress community and contributing to a life in harmony of all South Africans.

Food Security

Their intensive farm produces per annum approximately:

• 1 203 200 Kg Meat
• 3 500 000 kg Maize
• 1 000 000 kg Wheat

The average annual estimated consumption of one South African is:

• 43 kg Meat per person
• 115 kg Maize per person
• 45 kg Wheat per person
  Source:  Statistics Food and Afgicultural Organisation in Rome (FAO)

Considering above statistics Fortress farm enterprise gives annual food security to
± 80 637 South African Citizens

You can find them at the following addresses: