While news of another major petrol price cut in January will give many a happy start to the new year, finance experts warn that the year ahead may not be as bright and cheerful.

There is currently much talk about the value of agricultural land and the fact that land prices seem to have decreased during 2017/2018.

Land reform is necessary in South Africa, but that is about the only issue regarding land reform on which there is consensus.

On the very first page of The End of Animal Farming, author Jacy Reese makes it clear that the book is not about why animal farming is bad. There have been plenty of books chronicling the damage caused by factory farms, but his book is about how to solve animal farming itself.

A tiny tree-killing beetle with the awkwardly long name of Polyphagous Shothole Borer was detected in South Africa for the first time last year. It’s now attacking and inserting its deadly fungal ally, Fusarium euwallaceae, in a wider array of tree species across a much wider geographical area.

Earlier this year, Nick Serfontein wrote an open letter to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa asking him to take the views of white farmers on board as the government considers expropriating land without compensation to reduce rural poverty.