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10 June 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs
Christopher Rothmann
Christopher Rothmann is standing in one of the containers that will form part of the science park for entrepreneurs.

Adding to the value chain, extending the teaching and learning process, and supporting the development of the surrounding communities – this is the result of seven years of hard work for the Paradys Experimental Farm of the University of the Free State (UFS). Whether it is yoghurt and cheese from the dairy factory, wool products from the wool production and wool processing hub, or an ice-cold beer from the fermentation institute, the farm will soon share the fruits of its labour with the Bloemfontein community.

Situated outside Bloemfontein on the road to Reddersburg, the farm is an agricultural training centre in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences for UFS students who, among others, take modules in agriculture, working with cattle, sheep, crop cultivation, and milk production. Moreover, the farm also offers training opportunities to members of the community, ranging from short courses in animal health and animal breeding to workshops in wool classing, sheep handling, and sheep management. 

“We want to take students through the entire production chain. It is a valuable part of our teaching and can make our work on the farm more profitable. The aim is to extend the use of a specific product. Instead of only selling milk, we add value to the product and sell it, for instance, as cheese or yoghurt. Or in the case of grain, rather than only selling it to wholesalers to make bread, it can be fermented into beer and waste can be used as animal feed,” says Prof Frikkie Neser, Head of the Department of Animal Sciences. He is the convenor of this initiative, along with the Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Prof Danie Vermeulen.

Currently, eight departments in four of the faculties at the UFS are involved in the work on the experimental farm. 

Natural products in the dairy processing unit

Dr Analie Hattingh, Manager of the dairy processing unit and Lecturer in the Department of Animal Science, is responsible for the entire production process in the dairy processing unit, from concept development up to sales. Since the installation of the unit started in May 2021, two lines of cheese have been produced – a delicious semi-hard, full-cream all-rounder, and a more exotic cheese with different flavours, containing ingredients such as cumin, chili, garlic, peppercorns, and mango. The Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development (CENSARD) will later cultivate and harvest some of these herbs in the tunnels on the experimental farm. The department will also be involved in product development.

More recently, Dr Hattingh also started to investigate the development of a yoghurt line with different flavours – the more traditional mixed fruit and strawberry, as well as more exciting flavours such as pear caramel.   

“All our products are natural,” she says. 

This initiative adds to the already established centralised infrastructure hub on the experimental farm, which supports wool production and processing. Under the auspices of CENSARD, members from the community are taught, among others, entrepreneurial skills in different aspects of wool processing, such as knitting, making felt products, spinning, and weaving. 

The group of women in the wool processing unit is producing, among others, felt pencil cases, laptop bags, hand/
bookbags, tray cloths, and soft toys. 
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs. 

Creating products from dairy and wool is not only contributing to job creation; it also empowers communities to create a sustainable livelihood for themselves.

Award-winning beer 

Award-winning beer makers Dr Errol Cason, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Animal Science, and Dr Christopher Rothmann, postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Animal Sciences, are looking forward to opening a fermentation institute on the Paradys Experimental Farm. 

With their background as microbiologists, the two founders of Liquid Culture (in 2018) produced commercial batches of yeast used mainly by breweries for the fermentation of beer. They are supplying Bloemfontein as well as several breweries nationwide with their quality yeast. 

At the fermentation institute on the farm, these home brewers and owners of Kraft Brewing Co hope to not only continue brewing bear, but to also teach others about the fermentation process. Installation of the vessels, which were previously part of the South African Brewery’s World of Learning, is almost complete.

Dr Errol Cason, Dr Christopher Rothmann, and Barry Crous
Dr Errol Cason, Dr Christopher Rothmann, and Barry Crous at what will soon be a fermentation institute on
the Paradys Experimental Farm. 
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Entrepreneur science park 

Prof Neser says they are also in the process of constructing an entrepreneur (science) park for students in the sciences. Upon completion, the park will boast nine containers with the necessary infrastructure for students to work on innovation projects – promoting an entrepreneurial culture at the UFS. 

The farm will also provide a service to the agriculture industry by testing feed intake and growth rate in cattle, evaluating these animals’ efficiency in converting feed to body mass. Prof Neser says the UFS is the only university conducting these tests on cattle. Similar trials will also be conducted on sheep, in collaboration with BKB, ALPHA, and RFID.

Grass has been planted in the open areas, and trees and tables with benches are planned to create a welcoming space for school groups to visit during the week in order to learn about the wool and dairy value chain. Members of the community will also be invited to display and sell their products on Saturdays, along with the goods produced on the farm. The scene is set, and soon all projects will benefit not only UFS staff and students, but also the community.

Dr Analie Hattingh is constantly looking at developing
new products for the dairy processing 
unit. Here she
i
s testing feta cheese. 


News Archive

Is milk really so well-known, asks UFS’s Prof. Osthoff
2011-03-17

Prof. Garry Osthoff
Photo: Stephen Collett

Prof. Garry Osthoff opened a whole new world of milk to the audience in his inaugural lecture, Milk: the well-known (?) food, in our Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

Prof. Osthoff has done his research in protein chemistry, immuno-chemistry and enzymology at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria and post-doctoral research at the Bowman-Grey School of Medicine, North Carolina, USA. That was instrumental in establishing food chemistry at the university.
 
He is involved in chemical aspects of food, with a focus on dairy science and technology. He is also involved in the research of cheese processing as well as milk evolution and concentrated on milk evolution in his lecture. Knowledge of milk from dairy animals alone does not provide all the explanations of milk as food.
 
Some aspects he highlighted in his lecture were that milk is the first food to be utilised by young mammals and that it is custom-designed for each species. “However, mankind is an opportunist and has found ways of easy access to food by the practice of agriculture, where plants as well as animals were employed or rather exploited,” he said.
 
The cow is the best-known milk producer, but environmental conditions forced man to select other animals. In spite of breeding selection, cattle seem not to have adapted to the most extreme conditions such as high altitudes with sub-freezing temperatures, deserts and marshes.
 
Prof. Osthoff said the consumption of the milk as an adult is not natural; neither is the consumption of milk across species. This practice of mankind may often have consequences, when signs of malnutrition or diseases are noticed. Two common problems are an allergy to milk and lactose intolerance.
 
Allergies are normally the result of an immune response of the consumer to the foreign proteins found in the milk. In some cases it might help to switch from one milk source to another, such as switching from cow’s milk to goat’s milk.
 
Prof. Osthoff said lactose intolerance – the inability of adult humans to digest lactose, the milk sugar – is natural, as adults lose that ability to digest lactose. The symptoms of the condition are stomach cramps and diarrhoea. This problem is mainly found in the warmer climates of the world. This could be an indication of early passive development of dairy technology. In these regions milk could not be stored in its fresh form, but in a fermented form, in which case the lactose was pre-digested by micro-organisms, and the human population never adapted to digesting lactose in adulthood.
 
According to Prof. Osthoff, it is basically the lactose in milk that has spurred dairy technology. Its fermentation has resulted in the development of yoghurts and all the cheeses that we know. In turn, the intolerance to lactose has spurred a further technological solution: lactose-free milk is currently produced by pre-digestion of lactose with enzymes.
 
It was realised that the milks and products from different species differed in quality aspects such as keeping properties and taste. It was also realised that the nutritional properties differed as well as their effects on health. One example is the mentioned allergy against cow’s milk proteins, which may be solved by the consumption of goat’s milk. The nutritional benefits and technological processing of milk aroused an interest in more information, and it was realised that the information gained from human milk and that of the few domesticated species do not provide a complete explanation of the properties of milk as food. Of the 250 species of milk which have been studied, only the milk of humans and a few domesticated dairy animals has been studied in detail.

Media Release
15 March 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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