“Never underestimate the Mighty Mielie!” This might be the battle cry of the town of Bothaville in the north-western Free State (between Orkney and Kroonstad). The north-western Free State is not a place that immediately springs to mind as one of the great tourist attractions of the world.  But that would be unfair to its modest charms. Like many agricultural towns strung along the Vaal River, Bothaville is a clean and pretty town with a hidden secret.  It might not have the most obvious tourist attractions like a game reserve or entertainment complex but it is popular with weekend visitors who want to escape to the tranquillity of the Vaal – and the Vaal, with its blue gum and willow trees, its tranquil pools and shimmer of blue on hot afternoons, is an agreeable river to disport upon. But there is much more to Bothaville than meets the eye.  It is the richest agricultural district in the country, and produces maize, sunflowers, sorghum, peanuts, vegetables, export roses and other crops.  It also has some innovative thinkers in the tourism industry. But first, some history:  this wide flat plain so beloved of mielie farmers was originally settled by Bushmen and then occupied by the Leghoyo Tswana.  European settlers arrived in 1852.  The town was established in 1891 as a ‘Church town’ – a settlement created to serve the spiritual needs of the scattered surrounding farmers.  It narrowly averted being called Bothania (which is what farm owner Theuns Botha wanted to call it) and then Oorwinning (which is what a group of townsfolk wished to call it) and finally settled on the humdrum Bothaville.  But even though Bothaville was meant to be a church town, it had other more pressing needs – which is why a police station and prison were built before the church! The town only had one exciting moment of warfare during the Battle of Doornkop in the Anglo-Boer War, a rare defeat suffered by Boer General Christiaan de Wet and his commando.  Bothaville was destined to doze away as an agricultural backwater until the Free State Goldfields exploded into public consciousness 100 years ago.  The indirect riches from the gold fields helped put Bothaville on the agricultural map, and in 1995 the official name of the Maize Capital of South Africa was declared.  This was all that was needed to catapult Bothaville into frenzied activity. With mielies as a base, and Bothaville as the breadbasket of South Africa, the city fathers have developed a thriving industry – one could almost call it a niche tourism industry – around agriculture.  The bedrock of this is the Nampo Agricultural Show every May, one of the largest in the world.  It is also the biggest exhibition of agricultural machinery and livestock in the Southern hemisphere.  It draws 80 000 visitors and more than 500 exhibitors without any fuss or bother at all.  In October the town holds a Food and Witblits Festival, which is a three-day showpiece of good food, wine and witblits tasting, and the various sports of which the Afrikaner is particularly fond.  The highlight is a ‘mieliepit-spoeg kompetisie’ (a long-distance mieliepip spitting competition): the winners always declare that they soak the mielie kernels in witblits first, and one regular winner always removes his teeth beforehand, expressing a concern that perhaps the teeth might travel further than the pip! Against this jolly background is some hard-headed planning.  Possibly the most remarkable feature of Bothaville is the Guesthouse Project.  This rather innovative approach to an accommodation problem was started in 1995, when the rising popularity of annual events resulted in a chronic shortage of accommodation.  At that stage, the town had a single hotel and one guesthouse, with a combined capacity of 80.  The Maize Capital Forum (a committee of volunteers that was put together after Bothaville became the Maize Capital, with the firm mandate of making the most of this new designation) decided to call upon the worthy residents of the town to open their homes to visitors.  They instituted a training programme, a grading system, a tariff structure and a central booking system.  Anyone who fulfilled the conditions could come on board.  Within ten years the number of full-time guesthouses grew from one to four, and the number of private guest facilities grew from nothing to 140.  At the moment, the town can, at a pinch, accommodate more than 5 000 visitors – a huge improvement over 80.  The Guesthouse Project generates an annual turnover of almost R1,3 million.  The multiplier effect of this has not yet been calculated but anecdotal evidence suggests that the local business sector is very happy about this indeed.  As a result of the success of this project, guesthouses in neighbouring towns such as Potchefstroom, Orkney, Klerksdorp, Wesselsbron, Kroonstad and Welkom have been affiliated to the project. Once again, the tourism initiative shown by small towns with no obvious tourism product can only be admired – and perhaps emulated?