Schools That Rock publish a few short stories about pupils from our schools who reached the top.
Vryburg High School is one of our schools who teach their learners how to reach the top in life after leaving school.
Dr Hinner Köster was born and grew up on a large cattle Ranch near Vryburg, North-West Province, where he matriculated in 1982 at Vryburg High School. He then started his studies at the University of Pretoria where he received his B. Sc. Agric. in 1986, his B. Sc. Agric. (Hons.) in 1987 and his M. Sc. Agric. (Animal Nutrition) in 1990. In 1995 he completed his Ph.D. in Ruminant Nutrition at Kansas State University, USA, where he was also the first non-American President of the Graduate Student Association.
His groundbreaking research in the area of protein supplementation on poor quality roughages has also revolutionized the lick supplement market in South Africa and other parts of the world and has led to significant improvements in production and fertility rates of pasture-based beef cattle where his principles have been applied and commercially implemented.
Dr Köster still contributes to academic education of Animal Scientists by acting as co-supervisor for various M.Sc. and Ph.D. students at most of the major Animal Science faculties as well as the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Onderstepoort, and has, and further acts as external examiner for pre-and post-graduate students at the Universities of Pretoria, Free State and Stellenbosch. In 2008 he has also been appointed as an adjunct faculty Professor at Kansas State University, USA, a position he still holds. In 2014 he became Chairman of the Alumni Board of the University of Pretoria until 2019, when he was elected as President of the Convocation and a member of the Institutional Forum.
He has more than 40 international and national scientific papers and abstracts and has published more than 600 popular scientific and popular press papers. He further has presented 25 papers at international conferences and symposia and addressed over 600 commercial farmers’ and information days in various parts of the world. Dr Köster further is a member of the American Society of Animal Science, South African Society of Animal Science where he served on Council until 2012, and South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions.
After starting his industry career in 1997 as Chief Nutritionist of Kynoch for 2 years he became Technical Director of Afgri Animal Feeds, a position he held for 7 years. Dr Köster then became the Managing Director of Scinetic, the Centre for Excellence within Afgri Operations (Pty) Ltd. where he was responsible for R&D activities and a number of innovation and international business development programs within the company. In January 2009, he decided to exit the corporate environment to focus more independently on adding value to the South African as well as global animal feed, health and production chain. He joined Animate Animal Health (Pty) Limited as a partner and Director responsible for all technical matters, a company that focuses on value-added animal health and nutritional micro ingredient products and strategies for all species. In May 2012, after being offered the CEO position of one of South Africa’s largest Agricultural companies, Kanhym, he decided to accept the challenge and once again devoted his professional time within the corporate environment. He functioned in this capacity until September 2013 when he decided to revert back to consulting and numerous private business opportunities, specifically aimed at Agriculture and the Animal feed production chain. Currently he is a shareholder and Executive Director of the Kaonne Investments group, a holding company with 5 subsidiary companies, that focuses in adding value through services and products, especially across Africa, Middle East and Asia, within the entire animal feed value chain.
Over the last 5 years he has also assisted global companies and organizations, international funds and governments as an expert consultant across Africa and Asia. Dr Köster has further made noteworthy contributions to the animal feeds industry and to the animal science profession. He played a major role since 1998 at the SA Animal Feed Manufacturers Association (AFMA) and acted in various capacities for more than 20 years on the Board of Directors, Technical and Liaison Committee and Congress and Editorial Committees.
In 2005, he was elected chairman of the AFMA board of directors, a position he held until 2007, and also served as chairman on all the different AFMA committees since 2000.During his term at AFMA he was instrumental in initiating and contributing to the drafting of various Codes of Practice, Industry standards and a Code of Conduct for the Animal Feed industry.
Since 1996 he serves as director of the SA Hereford Breeders’ Society and currently is the President of the SA Hereford Association, and still acts as chairman of the World Hereford Conference Committee. In 2020, he was also elected onto the World Hereford Organisation’s Executive Committee. He further is a senior judge of various cattle breeds and interbreed beef cattle judge, and represented South Africa in Argentina (2000), Australia (2004), Denmark (2008), Canada (2012), Uruguay (2016) and New Zealand (2020) at World Hereford Conferences. He also co-owned a large egg production operation as well as two stud herds of Döhne Merino and Dorper sheep, and still co-owns two internationally known Hereford studs, Vicedale and Vicemong Herefords (USA).
In 1999, Dr Köster was awarded the Afgri (then OTK) Technical person of the Year award and received the prestigious Barney van Niekerk/AFMA Technical Person of the Year award in 2001 for his numerous contributions in the field of Animal Nutrition in South Africa. In July 2007 he was further honoured with the Silver Medal by the South African Society of Animal Science in acknowledgement of his exceptional contributions and involvement that significantly influenced and directed the development and improvement of production in the livestock industry. In his capacity as Chairman of AFMA, he also received the President’s Award at the same event from the South African Society of Animal Science in acknowledgement for AFMA’s exceptional contribution delivered to Animal Science and the Livestock Industry. In September 2008, he received the prestigious Agriculturist of the Year Award for Gauteng, South Africa. More recently (2011) he was also part of the Arthrosis R&D team being nominated for the prestigious NSTF (National Science and Technology Forum) – BHP Billiton award as finalist in the category “Research for Innovation by an Individual or a Team through an Organisation/Institution”.