EDITOR – Since my review of Rory Pilossof’s book ‘The Unbearable Whiteness of Being; Farmers Voices From Zimbabwe’, I have had a lot of feedback from Zimbabwean farmers, mostly concerning the chapter devoted to The Farmer magazine. The question everyone asks is why large-scale commercial farmers and Commercial Farmers Union members were not consulted about the arbitrary shut down of their only means of communication. I now wish to set the record straight.
The closure of The Farmer magazine in early 2002 was orchestrated by the existing CFU administration and the magazine’s own Board of Trustees. The erroneous excuse given for its demise was lack of viability. In fact, after canvassing of the CFU membership the vast majority of farmers agreed to pay for the magazine, and insisted it continue publishing. The CFU had tried to stop the accessing of its list of email addresses, but a sympathetic staff member risked severe disciplinary action by providing them surreptitiously. I learned later that The Farmer business plan proposal based on increased income from the additional cover charge payments was never even considered. It was summarily shelved and conveniently ignored by the Union and The Board of Trustees.
So why was The Farmer silenced?
The simple answer is that neither the Union nor its Board of Trustees were able to influence the magazine’s content or compromise its independence. Being too timid to sack the editor it was decided to remove the publication instead.
The manner of the closure was a shameful example of duplicity and Machiavellian conspiracy between the CFU and Board of Trustees. To avoid severance pay due to the loyal and long-serving staff because of forced redundancy, CFU and The Board of Trustees connived together to present the Trust as the employer and not CFU. As the Trust had no reserves of capital this meant staff, some with over 30 years on the magazine, would leave with nothing.
A letter from the CFU’s own lawyers clearly stating the employer as CFU forced both parties to back down and admit defeat and the issue was forcefully redressed.
The Farmer was no more: sacrificed on the altar of expediency by those that should have known better by setting higher standards of morals and integrity. Subsequent CFU administrations realising the folly of their predecessors tried with European Union funding to bring back The Farmer under a different guise and title without success.
Alas! The realisation that it is easier to tear down than to build up came too late to save The Farmer. – Mike Rook, by e-mail
Post published in: Letters to the Editor
It is CFU director David Hasluck under the presidency of Colin Cloete (subsequently prematurely fired by the CFU membership)that must take responsibility for the arbitrary closing down of ‘The Farmer’ magazine. His arrogant action against the wishes of the CFU membership (I was one of many that voted YES to save and pay for our magazine) was inexcusable. Worse was Hasluck’s disgusting betrayal of mostly loyal and long serving staff.