News

The 2021/22 wine grape season will go down as a good, but expensive, season, according to Conrad Schutte, Vinpro’s consultation service manager.

In the likely event that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) increases the repo rate by 25 basis points (0,25%) in the coming week, farmers will have to prepare themselves for the fact that it will become more expensive to service their debt.

Pig farmers across Europe are on high alert after the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported outbreaks of African swine fever (ASF) in wild boar in Hungary, Latvia and Italy during the second week of January.

Agri SA has called on the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Commission to move its focus on the national minimum wage to the unemployed and the creation of job opportunities.

Despite being “really happy” with the fact that the transfer of the Vrede dairy farm project in the Free State has finally been completed, there is still some frustration among the beneficiaries.

Twenty percent of grain producers in South Africa have lost more than 60% of their white maize plantings to water damage so far in 2022, according to a survey done by Grain SA earlier in January 2022.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development is in the process of reviewing, reengineering and redesigning the implementation of its Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES) vouchers, to address challenges identified by various stakeholders.

As more variants of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly known as bird flu, emerge, they become harder to track, increasing the potential spread to humans.

A shortage of veterinarians and a lack of training for small-scale and subsistence livestock farmers are crippling the potential of livestock production.

A wildfire that started in Highlands, at an old pine plantation managed by the national Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs near Kleinmond in the Western Cape, have destroyed more than 4 700ha of fynbos and plantations since it started on Saturday, 8 January.

Farmers in the Welkom district are still in the process of assessing the extent of the damage to grain lands and grazing after an evaporation dam belonging to the local Sibanye-Stillwater mine breached its walls at the end of December 2021.

Free State Agriculture (FSA) has joined the chorus of voices calling for government intervention to mitigate the damage suffered by farmers following heavy rainfall across the province.

The downward adjustment of fuel prices for January is not expected to bring much respite for farmers and consumers, according to Dawie Roodt, chief economist at Efficient Group.

While difficult to quantify, it could be safely assumed that thousands of hectares of grazing have thus far been destroyed by brown locusts (Locustana pardalina) in the Eastern Cape since the start of the 2021/22 summer season.

The damage caused by excessive rain in virtually every part of the summer grain production area, and especially in the western Free State and North West, has destroyed vast tracks of grain fields, and thus it is necessary for government to declare a State of Disaster. This was according to Francois Strydom, chairperson of Agbiz.

The Gaborone High Court will deliver judgment in a case in which Fresh Standard, a Botswana-based company, is fighting for the right to obtain a licence to grow hemp and cannabis plants for industrial use on Kangwe farms.

The South African wool industry is in uncertain territory, although the country experienced fewer COVID- 19-related challenges in 2021 than in 2020, when the wool market saw a dramatic drop in prices and the Cape Wools SA market indicator fell to R118,58/kg in September 2020.

With profit margins under pressure, many smaller pig farmers will leave the industry, while bigger farmers will consolidate and become more efficient, according to Johann Kotzé, CEO of the South African Pork Producers’ Organisation.

With escalating input costs, consumers’ disposable income under pressure and avian influenza still looming, poultry producers will have an uphill battle to rebuild their flocks in 2022.

Despite South Africa exporting substantial volumes of maize, ending stocks as a proportion of local usage are projected to remain above 20% for both the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons.