Caxton Magazines

The Eastern Free State region bordering Lesotho is both dramatic and charming, with its huge sandstone cliffs, orchards, grain crops and livestock-dotted landscape. But, as Mike Burgess writes, there is an anarchic side to this region as cross-border crime continues to erode the fabric of commercial farming, despite a lengthy legal battle between organised agriculture and the state.

HIGHEST (HEIFER): R70 000

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) recently brought its New Generation Plantations project to SA, where it is engaging with timber stakeholders and government to implement the concept. Rod Taylor, director of forests for WWF International, explained the project to Robyn Joubert.

The Australian Droughtmaster will be a serious new player in the South African beef cattle arena, says Droughtmaster breeder Johan van der Nest. Annelie Coleman reports on the potential impact of this breed on the local beef scene.

The rand’s recent drop against the US dollar could see local farmers scrambling to buy imported agricultural machinery.

A public consultation recently held in Durban on the proposed Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill clearly highlighted the different views of several groups on the issue. Lloyd Phillips reports.

Farmers in the Ifafa area of the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast have been heaped with praise by the province’s police commissioner.

More than 244 500ha were lost to veld fires in the Free State in the 2012/2013 veld fire season and authorities are concerned that the pattern may be repeated in the 2013/2014 season.

FW reader Pat is moving to a farm and wants to build a cottage on the land. Jonno helps design a beautiful cottage at minimal cost.

Injuries to a horse’s tendons are invariably very serious, warns Kim Dyson.

The Royal Show, SA’s oldest and largest mixed exhibition, took place in Pietermaritzburg from 24 May to 2 June. Joe Spencer describes some of the vehicles that Bell Equipment had displayed.

The chocolate brownie is without doubt one of the finest contributions made to civilisation by the US. Stories about its invention clog the internet. But the truth of the matter is simply this: every time a baker makes a batch, the glorious concept is reinvented anew. Try this outstanding version next time the chocolate craving threatens to take over.

Some months ago at a local farmers’ market I found a stall selling lagaan. After some heavy-duty charm on my part, the stall holder let me in on the secret recipe. Back home in the lab, some additional research and development by my wife resulted in this outstanding food concept and cultural artefact. No braai at our home is complete without it.

Chicken on the braai can so easily be one of life’s great failures. You all know about it – skin nice and crispy on the outside, yet deep within the breast or thigh, the meat is pallid and the juices red. Apart from the marginal health risk of salmonella, there’s that inherent resistance, even from those who love their steak 99% raw, to ingesting rare chicken. One of the easier ways out of this problem is to prepare this pared-down version of chicken tikka, a dish of Indo-Pakistani origin which can now be eaten worldwide.

Retail trade sales, measured in real terms increased by 1,9% year-on-year in April, compared to the 2,7% growth in March and 3,9% in February, Statistics South Africa reported.

The need for stakeholders in the red meat abattoir sector to ensure that their operations had the very best productivity and quality control systems in place was highlighted at a recent conference of the Red Meat Abattoir Association in Stellenbosch.

South Africa and Argentina signed a bilateral agreement to work together to improve the agricultural sectors in each country.

I wonder how many farmers appreciate the work involved in selling their produce? When you walk onto a busy market floor, you’ll see agents engaged in animated debate with buyers and the whole scene looking and sounding decidedly chaotic.

Agri-company DuPont opened a $40 million (R400 million) maize, sunflower seed and oilseed rape hybrids production facility in Ukraine last week.

Maize producers and maize users will have to watch the markets carefully in coming months.