Farmer’s Weekly has a long and proud history of serving South Africa’s agricultural industry. Throughout the years, Farmer’s Weekly has been a clarion for South Africa’s farming community and, the magazine remains fully committed to its original undertaking – the advancement of the interests of farmers and their industry.

The first issue saw the light of day on 15 March 1911 under the editorship of Thomas Mackenzie, who at the time was the editor of the daily newspaper The Friend, based in Bloemfontein. In 1920 Mackenzie was appointed managing editor of all The Friend Newspaper Publishing Company’s publications and Sydney York-Ford became Farmer’s Weekly’s first full-time editor. Under his leadership, the magazine continued to grow. On his retirement 26 years later in 1946, York-Ford was succeeded by Ian “Chips” Barr.

By then the magazine had the enviable reputation of being “The Farmer’s Bible”. Barr was succeeded by his assistant editor, Carl Havinga, at the end of 1963, and remained in the post until 1979, when Lionel Mundell, former regional editor in Western Cape, was appointed the magazine’s editor. He was followed by Mike Fisher in 1987, Corrie Venter in 1994, Chris Burgess in 2000 and current editor Alita van der Walt in 2011.