Agribusiness

Reyneke Wines was among the first organic wineries in South Africa to receive a five-star rating in Platter’s Wine Guide. Owner Johan Reyneke spoke to Glenneis Kriel about his long and often challenging journey to establish a successful chemical-free wine grape operation.

For those already using it, a newly launched and innovative online trading platform is reportedly revolutionising the way that South Africa’s fresh produce sellers and buyers conduct their typically time-sensitive and demanding trading with each other. HelloChoice’s co-founders explain how the platform works and its benefits to both sellers and buyers.

Few consumers properly understand how food production works or have any emotional connection with farmers and farming. This is according to Lauren Murphy, who, through her Internet-based farm produce marketing company, is helping to narrow this gap while supplying tasty, nutritious food to her many loyal clients in KwaZulu-Natal.

Although honeybush has long been used in parts of South Africa to brew a caffeine-free tea, it has remained a small-scale activity. However, the industry has potential to grow and thus create jobs for poor communities in the Western and Eastern Cape. Annabel Horn and Albert Ackhurst of the Western Cape’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning explain.

Indigenous African ingredients and food traditions are underrepresented on the local and international markets. Black Umbrellas Global Entrepreneur Week 2018 overall winner Sipamandla Manqele founded her unique agribusiness to help bridge this gap.

The future of wine is evolving and the industry has to adapt in order to survive and flourish. This is according to Robert Joseph, an internationally respected wine expert and winemaker.

A five-year, multi-pronged programme that brings together government, academia and the private sector’s financial expertise has been launched in the Free State.

Strategies to synchronise produce availability with times of general undersupply can prove highly lucrative, as KwaZulu-Natal fresh produce farmer Andile Ngcobo tells Lloyd Phillips.

The Safari boot takes you effortlessly from the farm to your desk, and on to the urban jungle. It’s a shoe that’s hard-working, classic and contemporary, and easily affordable.

Huguenot Farms in the Sundays River Valley is implementing a long-term, mixed farming strategy that will see its ‘beautiful soils’ produce to their full potential. Sabrina Dean visited the farm, where the Marais family has established a profitable combined dairy-citrus operation.

A fruit-manufacturing business at Piket-Bo-Berg in the Western Cape has created a market for rejected produce by turning it into jam, chutney and similar products. Jeandré van der Walt spoke to general manager Liebré Jacobs about her company’s achievements.

At Corteva Agriscience, the new Agriculture Division of DowDuPont™, female employees enjoy precisely the same job opportunities as men.