News

North West Premier Bushy Maape announced in his recent State of the Province address that a multibillion- rand routine road maintenance plan was to be rolled out in all four districts of the province.

Themba Rikhotso has been appointed as the new CEO of Land Bank, effective from 1 April. He takes over from Khensani Mukhari, who in May last year was appointed as acting CEO, following the resignation of Ayanda Kanana, who served in the position for two years.

Since its reopening in the second half of 2022, the Farmers’ Meat Market export abattoir in Mariental, Namibia, has processed payment of R10,9 m, excluding VAT, to 46 sheep producers in that country.

Efforts to secure global food supplies are being ramped up due to growing concern about climate change. As a result, the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, located on Norway's Spitsbergen Island, recently received its most diverse batch of seed donations yet, according to Reuters.

The decrease in employment in the agriculture sector in the fourth quarter of 2022 (Q4 2022) was cause for serious concern, according to Johan Wege, chair of Agri SA’s Centre of Excellence: Labour.

Rising costs of food and energy, and their impact on food security and the climate, featured widely at this year’s World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland.

The outlook for pome fruit this season is still uncertain, with various factors threatening the financial viability of producers, according to Roelf Pienaar, managing director of Tru-Cape. Pienaar was speaking during a virtual meeting on the forecast for the year ahead.

Zimbabwe’s few remaining commercial farmers who lost their land during that country’s large-scale expropriation of white-owned farms were sceptical about the Zimbabwean government’s recent compensation offer. This was according to Dr Theo de Jager, chairperson of the board at the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI).

The shortages of fresh produce currently being experienced in the UK and Ireland can largely be ascribed to extreme weather conditions being experienced in Spain and North Africa, where harvests have been negatively impacted by flooding, snowfall and hail.

The annual budget delivered by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in Parliament on Wednesday, 22 February, delivered some relief for those farmers struggling under the burden of load-shedding and rising input costs.

The South African stock theft statistics as recently released by the South African Police Service (SAPS) is not a true reflection of the impact of the crime in the country, according to Dr Jane Buys, risk and safety analyst at Free State Agriculture.

It is reckless of animal welfare organisations to make unfounded assumptions about the treatment of livestock in South Africa, according to James Faber, chairperson of the Red Meat Producers’ Organisation.

Role players expect Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana to announce support for the agriculture sector as load-shedding and rising input costs see farmers battling to produce affordable food. Godongwana will deliver the annual Budget Speech on 22 February.

The consumer price inflation (CPI) index may have decreased so far this year, but consumers still face significant food costs.

FairPlay has renewed calls for government to remove South Africa’s 15% value-added tax (VAT) from chicken portions because of “rising agricultural costs, including unreliable and increasingly expensive electricity”.

South Africa’s blueberry season has come to a close, and it is one that many farmers would prefer to forget, with the negative repercussions expected to be felt for years to come as many face financial ruin.

On 13 February, government declared a national state of disaster in response to the floods affecting Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape and North West.

Farmers in Botswana are looking forward to starting the commercial production of apples, after the introduction of semi-arid varieties of apple trees suitable for local conditions.

Agricultural role players are unmoved by the commitments made by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on 9 February.

Hunger, poverty, soil degradation, and climate change: few crops can boast the ability to solve all of these challenges.