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Like many other South African agricultural products, tobacco had to overcome huge difficulties when thrown into the free market. The tobacco industry devised a solution to ensure its survival, but under the new system, tobacco farmers seem to have lost the control they had over their product and the profits they shared from processing it. Alita van der Walt takes a closer look at this controversial industry.

The Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) recently announced its June 2007 to 2012 baseline for SA's ­agricultural sector. The baseline is not a forecast, but rather a benchmark of what could happen to commodities under a particular set of policies and demographic assumptions over a five-year period. Wilma den Hartigh reports.

We're streets behind New Zealand and Australia when it comes to marketing our agricultural produce, says Mohammad Karaan (right), chairperson of the National Agricultural Marketing Council, and government should take responsibility for this.

Should agriculture in South Africa be concerned about its image? And what can be done to rectify the “bad image” it has in certain quarters? Alita van der Walt speaks to Prof JD ­Froneman (right) of the School of ­Communication Studies at North-West ­University in Potchefstroom. Issue date 15 June 2007

Roelof Bezuidenhout talks to Hugo Lemon, textile technologist in Woolworths' menswear division, about the retailer's commitment to exchange new ideas with wool producers to enhance SA's industry

Following the suspension of the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisation in July 2006, negotiations resumed this February. At a lecture at the University of Pretoria earlier this year, Xavier Carim, SA's chief negotiator at the WTO, emphasised the importance of agriculture in the talks. Wilma den Hartigh asked him about the issues under negotiation.
Issue Date: 30 March 2007

Despite the global wine glut, Kango Wines has substantially increased wine sales over the past few years by moving from bulk wine to premium wine production. In 2006 Kango's sales increased by over 18% on 2005.
Issue date:23 March 2007

Farm evictions continue to divide opinion - agricultural unions argue evictions are either legal responses to changing business conditions or isolated unlawful acts, and land activists insist complaints of abuses keep flooding in. Stephan Hofstätter spoke to Peter Moatshe, chairperson of the parliament's select committee on land and environmental affairs, after he chaired a heated parliamentary debate on this issue.
Issue Date 16 March 2007

Kerneels Pietersen, president of Agri Eastern Cape, talks to Roelof Bezuidenhout about the organisation's views on land reform and BEE, and his hopes for farming in the province.
Issue Date: 9 March 2007

Crop and beef farmer Neels Ferreira from Leandra in Mpumalanga wears many hats. He is not only Grain SA's chairperson, but is also vice-president and chairperson of Agri SA's commodity chamber. He talks to Peter Hittersay about current issues facing agriculture and farmers in South Africa. Issue Date: 23 February 2007