News

Poultry farmers are operating at a R2/kg loss due to the effects of rolling blackouts and high feed costs, according to Chris Schutte, CEO of Astral Foods.

Solving South Africa’s energy crisis should be at the top of the agenda of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address on Thursday, 9 February, according to various agricultural stakeholders.

Estuaries and wetlands are the most threatened and least protected ecosystems in South Africa. The inclusion of the Soetendalsvlei wetlands into the Agulhas National Park on World Wetlands Day earlier in February was therefore to be celebrated, according to Dr Luthando Dziba, SANParks managing executive for conservation services.

Population decline in South Africa’s biggest agricultural export markets is cause for concern, and young farmers should think carefully about which crops to grow in the future.

Trends in macadamia nut farming margins are showing a downward spiral of lower yields, lower prices and higher input costs. But with good management, farmers should be able to weather the storm.

Sales of agricultural machinery are not expected to reach the record highs of 2022 this year, as inflation rates and high input costs weigh on farmers.

The fruit processing industry is experiencing tremendous challenges because of the power crisis and uncertainty over the future of Langeberg & Ashton Foods, according to Jacques Jordaan, CEO of the Canning Fruit Producers’ Association (CFPA).

Any outbreak of African swine fever (AFS) is a serious concern, but it is disconcerting that the latest outbreak in Gauteng has spread to a commercial pork production enterprise where strict biosecurity regulations were in place. This was according to Dr Thandi Chiappero of the South African Pork Producers’ Organisation’s (SAPPO) consumer assurance unit.

The Farm Action organisation in the US has attributed record-breaking increases in the price of eggs not to inflation or avian influenza (bird flu), as claimed by egg companies, but to price collusion among that country’s top egg producers.

Bluetongue posed an extremely serious danger to sheep production in South Africa and the disease was expected to escalate markedly during the rest of summer and in early autumn of 2023.

South Africa’s sheep industry has continued to decline due to the effects of devastating drought in some parts of the country, as well as lower prices in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wine export volumes have declined by 5%, from 388.1 million in 2021 to 368,8 million litres in 2022, while export value dropped by 2,4%, from R10,2 billion to R9,9 billion, according to the recently released Wines of South Africa Export Report 2022.

The declining Energy Availability Factor of Eskom’s fleet reflected the cumulative impact of historical underinvestment in maintenance and assets, exacerbated by flaws in the design of new power stations in the last decade, according to an announcement by the South African National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM).

Soil moisture levels in those regions of Brazil where coffee and sugar cane are produced are currently at their highest levels in seven years, according to data from Refinitiv, an American-British global provider of financial market data.

Farmers in the Northern Cape, where a devastating drought has prevailed since 2011, are still in dire straits, despite the rainfall that occurred recently in some parts of the region.

Zimbabwe is making strides towards self-sufficiency in raw milk production, according to that country’s Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development permanent secretary, Dr John Basera.

South Africa’s largest tobacco manufacturer, British American Tobacco (BAT), has entered into a process of restructuring, because of an “explosion in illicit tobacco sales” following the ban on cigarette sales during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in 2020.

South Africa’s agriculture sector is on the cusp of a devastating catastrophe because of the country’s inability to provide sufficient electricity to keep the wheels of the agricultural value chain rolling.

As the world moves firmly into 2023, a level of market volatility that has not been seen in years is creating uncertainty with regard to global grain supplies.

Even as South Africa’s potato industry feels the weight of adverse production conditions, high input costs and rolling blackouts, producers have reason for optimism.