Kevin Scott
More than 500000 subsistence and small-scale farmers stand to benefit from the launch of a magazine that will instruct them on new farming methods and techniques. Farmers’ Monthly will also provide basic orientation in business skills, such as budgeting, marketing, handling of expenses and crop planning. It will become a handy reference book for a constituency with low literacy levels and provide access to information that is vital to any business operation.
Launched in KwaZulu-Natal two weeks ago, the first edition of the magazine is published in Zulu and is aimed at the estimated 60000 small-scale sugar cane farmers in the province.
“There’s a tremendous need for information and although it’s often available one can’t get it across,” says editor Mike Cordes, an agricultural reporter for the past seven years and a farmer for more than 30 years.
The magazine will be published in various languages, including Afrikaans, isiXhosa and SeSotho. The Mpumalanga edition is set to be launched next month, and the Western and Eastern Cape editions in June.
An educational programme of this nature is important, says publisher Yoland Geyser. “Rural farmers with little formal education are the people the magazine is targeting. The majority of these farmers have a grade six education.”
Geyser says Farmers’ Monthly has no ties with the commercial Farmer’s Weekly that targets established farmers. At eight pages in total the magazine’s production costs stand at about R6000 a page. “That breaks down to a selling cost of R5 an issue, but farmers will not have to worry as private sponsors will cover this cost, including advertising revenue,” says Geyser.
Another positive spin to the magazine is that it employs youths recommended by the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society, offering them on-the-job training for a career in the media.
“The project is two tier,” says Geyser. “Firstly the magazine provides education and information for the rural farmers in their own language and, secondly, it’s an urban-awareness campaign to employ underprivileged children who otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to enter the media industry.”
“Farmers’ Monthly will improve the lives of rural farmers in a simple and straightforward way,” says Goodman Mathebe, a 19-year-old foster child from Soweto and the first full-time editorial member of the magazine.
In terms of content, Farmers’ Monthly will dedicate a page to HIV/Aids and issues affecting rural women. “Women are the backbone of rural farming. Women still do the work in Africa today,” says Geyser.
Education permeates every aspect of the magazine. Simple sketches illustrate the text and the design and packaging enables the farmer to pull it out in poster fashion and keep it as a reference guide.
Lindiwe Magajana, a spokesperson for the National African Farmers’ Union, says the magazine will bring value to rural farmers by spreading information and helping farmers progress from small-scale farming to commercial farming. “Although there is an increasing number of rural farmers who hold a degree in agriculture, the majority still have little formal education,” she says.
Other partners in the project include the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture, which is distributing the magazine to rural areas, and the Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market, which contributed to the conception of the project. Working from Africahouse in Parkhurst, the magazine will target an initial circulation of 20 000.