Questions to ask when you’re about to grow crops
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-08-31 In Blog @gsafarmerdev tweets on training by Johan Kriel from Grain SA. Workshops revolve around asking and answering some questions. The questions are practical and very worthy, and we reproduce them here: What? What is the crop you want to plant? Can it be grown successfully in your district? Do farmers still […]
Google searches and farm murders
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-08-31 In Blog We are working our way through the chapters of the Agri Handbook, doing a general check on links and updating information. This morning we picked up where we left off yesterday, the “Berries & exotic fruits” chapter. Subsequent to the 2011 edition we make only the occasional use of […]
Showing learners the way
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-08-03 In Blog The Koue Bokkeveld Training Centre newsletter contains news of an agricultural excursion for grade 12 learners from four schools: Iingcinga Zethu Secondary School, Skurweberg Sekondêr, Ceres Sekondêr and Wolseley Sekondêr. They were given a day’s practical demonstration of what studying agriculture involves. Photo used courtesy of Hortgro and the Koue Bokkeveld Training Centre Visits to […]
Our strange planet and having all the time in the world
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-08-02 In Blog As someone who works from home, I occasionally help a friend’s teenagers with school assignments. Yesterday’s was a list of questions which included: (a) What impedes South Africa’s economic progress? and, (ii) What strategies would you recommend government adopt to encourage economic development? I sat up, of course. To […]
“I’ve learned to be more assertive and that I really need to stick to my goals.”
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-07-26 In Blog The story of Renshia Manuel , owner of Growbox Nursery, in her own words. I grew up in Eerste River and, after high school, I studied motor mechanics for two years. (My mom was a single working parent and her car wasn’t very reliable so I thought this would a great […]
Paying attention to agro-processing
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-07-11 In Blog For those who might have missed it, the Department of Trade and Industry’s 2018/19-2020/21 Industrial Action Policy Programme (IPAP) were announced at the end of last month. Some of the IPAP interventions have been met with remarkable success. In the leather and footwear sub-sector, for example, exports of leather and footwear […]
Livestock: how to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-07-06 In Blog Allan Savory, thinking out-of-the-box, promotes livestock as the answer to desertification and climate change. “There is only one option left to climatologists and scientists, and that is to do the unthinkable: to use livestock, bunched and moving, as a proxy for former herds and predators, and to mimic nature”. It […]
Co-operatives help people to help themselves
By Craig Macaskill Posted 2018-06-28 In Blog There is little appreciation for the importance, significance and potential of the co-operatives model in South Africa, Dr Rob Davies told an audience in Durban over the weekend. Addressing the International Cooperatives Day event, the Minister of Trade & Industry spoke again of additional measures in the pipeline to […]
Farmers, bankers, conservationists (part 2)
Some farmers might seem to make it all look so easy! Perhaps they do, but it wouldn’t do them justice to leave it there. The ease with which everything comes together speaks of much that went before – but we’ll get to that shortly
Farmers, bankers, conservationists (part 3)
Upon arrival at Treetops Farm, we had refreshments and the first of the presentations.