Denene Erasmus
Denene hails from a sugar cane farm in Pongola, KwaZulu-Natal, but after school she relocated to the Cape Winelands to study, for many years, at the University of Stellenbosch. She worked as a journalist for Farmer’s Weekly since 2009 and in 2015 moved to Johannesburg as Deputy editor for the magazine. In 2016 she was appointed editor, and at the end of 2021, she stepped down from her position to pursue her journalism career.
A letter to young farmers in South Africa
A friend I met through our mutual interest in farming recently introduced me to the book Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future, compiled by the US’s Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.
Crime – what SA is best known for?
In the past few weeks I have travelled to a number of countries and met journalists, farmers and agribusiness professionals from all over the world.
The Land Bank’s missed opportunity
I have often wondered, while listening to presentations given at conferences by agricultural economists, whether these learned men and women would make the best or worst farmers.
Farmers, the black sheep of the world?
As part of an in-house project to look at how Farmer’s Weekly has evolved over the past 107 years, a couple of colleagues and I recently visited the National Library in Pretoria to page through the magazine’s archives.
New start for land reform department?
As the saying goes: be careful what you wish for. After the appointment of Cyril Ramaphosa as president of the ANC in December last year, and his subsequent election as president in Parliament in February, South Africans knew that one of his first orders of business would be a cabinet reshuffle.
Will technology end hunger?
South Africa is one of those countries in which you rarely have to travel far to witness first-hand the kind of disparity that exists in the supply of food.
SA’s maintenance emergency – time for change
As a journalist working for Farmer’s Weekly, you regularly get to experience the bumps, cracks, potholes and other obstacles that crowd out the smooth and flat parts of many provincial and regional roads.
Goat breeding: the challenges faced by smallholders
The market for slaughter and breeding goats in South Africa appears to be almost insatiable. With more than 60% of the local goat population in the hands of smallholder farmers, this sector should be benefiting from the strong demand. Denene Erasmus reviews some of the recent research into the factors preventing the smallholder sector from taking full advantage of this opportunity.
Land: SA’s real watershed moment
Ever since the National Assembly voted to pass a revised motion brought by the EFF to launch a process to change the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, every media platform in South Africa has been awash with stories, comments, opinions and statements from those who support and those who reject the idea, as well as those who have not yet taken a firm stance on the matter.
Climate change data cannot be faked
Now that all the most crucial changes on South Africa’s political landscape have come to pass, we can turn our attention for a moment to those challenges that will not only impact the social and financial welfare of South Africans, but the existence of all life on earth.
Land audit reveals no great insight
Since land ownership, and agricultural land ownership in particular, remains one of South Africa’s most contentious issues, we should ideally have clear, independent and accurate data available to inform any policy decisions about how best to distribute and utilise land.
A letter to farmers in drought-stricken regions
It’s a feeling anyone who has grown up on a farm knows well: the excruciating helplessness of looking out over your parched veld or crops and watching rain fall from heavy clouds in the distance, on another family’s farm.
Uncertainty is the new normal
Try to think back, and ask yourself if two years ago you would have believed that a global first-class city would run out of water, or that a US president would openly make jokes about nuclear warfare or be overtly racist, and not only get away with it, but embolden his millions of supporters in doing so. I would not have believed it!
Ramaphosa’s land reform problem
The general feeling of relief that South Africa’s business community may have felt when it was announced that Cyril Ramaphosa had won the ANC leadership race was short-lived for those in agriculture.
The one thing that can destroy SA
At the end of last year, two reports were published that exposed findings so disturbing that if this knowledge does not spur South Africans into action to save the country’s future, I doubt anything will.
Farming: A labour of love
At Farmer’s Weekly we focus mostly on the ‘how’ of farming and provide a steady stream of practical information that can help farmers improve the efficiency, sustainability and profitability of their businesses.
Agriculture needs a confidence boost
The past two years have been tough for the local agricultural sector, and the strain that farmers and agribusinesses have been under is really starting to show.
FARMTALK: we want to get to know you better
Farmer’s Weekly has been proudly serving the Southern African agricultural sector for the past 106 years, and one of the reasons why we have managed to keep going for over a century is our absolute dedication to continually adapting to the changing needs of you, our readers.
Politics and farming are intertwined
As the political situation in Zimbabwe started heating up in mid-November, Farmer’s Weekly published a news story on its website about how the departure of President Robert Mugabe may affect the future of farming in that country.
Farm crime: an unbearable burden
It must be at least six years ago now that I first became aware of the real scope of one of the many harassments that farmers face.
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