Letter from the editor

The HIV/AIDS scourge on farms

The HIV/AIDS scourge on farms

Over the past two decades, commercial farmers in South Africa have made significant strides in improving the working and living conditions of farmworkers.

Censorship

The SABC’s Hlaudi (Good-news) Motsoeneng has joined the philosophical school of thought popular with political leaders such as President Jacob Zuma and EFF leader Julius Malema, which contends that if you are unfamiliar with something, it simply does not exist.

Do you feel safe in South Africa?

Someone recently showed me a photograph that a friend of theirs had posted on Facebook, showing an aerial view of a city burning.

UK farmers were in favour of Brexit

The United Kingdom (UK) voted on Friday to withdraw from the European Union (EU), sending the pound and the rand diving, and David Cameron, former UK Prime Minister, running.

Innovation out of chaos

It was the Greek philosopher, Plato, who first said “necessity is the mother of invention”, but Albert Einstein later famously changed the phrase slightly to “necessity is the mother of all invention”.

Why so angry, South Africa?

South Africa’s economy has stagnated, and by the time you read this, Standard and Poor’s may well have downgraded the country’s credit rating to...

Land reform: exposing the myths

More and more evidence suggests that the actual demand for agricultural land in South Africa is not only being vastly inflated by those in power, but that government presently owns enough land to meet current demand.

How many people can we support?

The planet’s human population is growing at an alarmingly rapid pace, and nobody knows this better than farmers.

Adopting a farmer-centric approach

I was shocked, but not altogether surprised, to learn recently that farmers’ incomes worldwide have remained significantly lower than the average income in most sectors, often by as much as 50%.

Does farming make you happy?

Considering the serious business of farming, the question, ‘does farming make you happy?’ may seem silly and perhaps superfluous.

No more cheap food

Food should not be cheap. It should be valued and appreciated because of the scarce resources used during the production process, and because of the effort and risk taken to produce it.

The right kind of growth in agriculture

Last week, I wrote about the crucial role that the development of rural infrastructure plays in creating the type of living environment that would attract young people to a career in farming.

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