Call for grain and oilseed indaba in SA

The time has come to create a comprehensive soya value chain plan to create additional value for South African end-consumers, according to De Wet Boshoff, executive director of the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association of South Africa (AFMA).

Call for grain and oilseed indaba in SA
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The time has come for a  comprehensive grain and soya value chain plan to create additional value for South African end-consumers, according to De Wet Boshoff, executive director of the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association of South Africa (AFMA).

Boshoff said at a recent planning session of the Oilseeds Industry Forum for the local soya industry that it was important that a grain and oilseed value chain indaba should be held early 2019  to develop a five-year plan for the industries and value chains.

Five key topics were discussed at the session, namely supply and demand balance, pricing transparency, quality, infrastructure, imports and exports, according to a statement by the committee.

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It emerged that although the soya industry had grown substantially during the past few years, the industry was still relatively young and in a maturing phase.

Local production had doubled and processing of local soya beans increased markedly, resulting in an improved trade balance with significantly fewer imports of oilcake.

According to Jannie Myburg, oilseed trader at Free State Oil, the imports could be ascribed to the quality of local soya oilcake compared with imported soya oilcake from Argentina, for example.

The imported products’ oil and protein content substantially surpassed the oil content of local crops, he told Farmer’s Weekly.

According to the statement, local soya processing capacity remained at 2,1 million tons. During the past two seasons, the crushers nonetheless experienced numerous challenges including mechanical failure, which had a severe impact on crushing capacity.

Increasing volumes of soya bean was being produced in the western parts of the summer grain production region and indications were that there was ample opportunity for the expansion of the crushing industry in the region.

The statement also said that deteriorating infrastructure was of great concern. In addition, load-shedding and the often limited access to water resulted in substantial down-time in the industry.

This led to considerable wastage and losses, which directly affected profit margins. Improved infrastructure was vital to achieve the total replacement of imported oilcake, especially in the coastal regions.

To ensure improved transparency in the market, the industry was in the process of developing an oilcake futures contract to be listed on the JSE (Safex).

This would provide buyers and sellers of oilcake with the opportunity to hedge local oilcake under local conditions, the statement said.

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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.