Agri shows to return to local calendar this year

Grain SA is going ahead with arrangements for the 2022 Nampo Harvest Day while it awaits the outcome of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s undertaking to lift the state of emergency, instituted in 2020 to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Agri shows to return to local calendar this year
Nampo Harvest Day will take place this year from 16 to 20 May.
Photo: FW Archive
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Grain SA is going ahead with arrangements for the 2022 Nampo Harvest Day while it awaits the outcome of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s undertaking to lift the state of emergency, instituted in 2020 to contain the spread of COVID-19.

This was according to Du Toit Wessels, assistant manager of marketing and Nampo at Grain SA.

“Our time is running out and we only have about two months to organise this year’s [event], which is planned for 16 to 20 May.

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“We couldn’t wait for the announcement by government, and therefore decided to go ahead with our plans for Nampo 2022,” Wessels said.

According to him, Grain SA was pinning its hopes on the lifting of the state of emergency. This was of vital importance, as Nampo exhibitors had made it clear that it was not worth their while to take part in such an event if fewer than 10 000 visitors a day were allowed to attend. The showgrounds had capacity for 30 000.

According to Wessels, if the state of emergency was lifted, the organisers would also not need to comply with government’s current requirement for ‘vaccination passports’.

Exhibition space for Nampo was fully booked and there was a long waiting list of prospective exhibitors. He added that the number of international exhibitors had declined somewhat from the 2019 event, but the available space had been rapidly filled by local participants.

The management of the Bloem Show also announced that, after a two-year hiatus, the event would take place this year from 27 April to 7 May.

According to Elmarie Prinsloo, CEO of the Bloem Show, the event’s management team was also awaiting an announcement by government that visitor numbers could be increased to 50% of the showground’s capacity, as opposed to the current maximum of 2 000 people outdoors and 1 000 people indoors.

She said in a statement that the 2022 Bloem Show agricultural programme would include 22 horse, small-stock and cattle championships, 13 of which would be national competitions.

“Despite rising costs and expenses, we’ve decided to keep exhibitors’ and visitors’ fees the same as they were for the 2020 [show],” Prinsloo added.

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Annelie Coleman represents Farmer’s Weekly in the Free State, North West and Northern Cape. Agriculture is in her blood. She grew up on a maize farm in the Wesselsbron district where her brother is still continuing with the family business. Annelie is passionate about the area she works in and calls it ‘God’s own country’. She’s particularly interested in beef cattle farming, especially with the indigenous African breeds. She’s an avid reader and owns a comprehensive collection of Africana covering hunting in colonial Africa, missionary history of same period, as well as Rhodesian literature.