South Africa

Representatives of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are due to revisit SA this month to assess the progress on managing animal health issues here.

It turns out the outbreak of worms in the Mokopane area in Limpopo and Rayton in eastern Gauteng during September and October 2013, was not army worm, but another kind of worm.

South Africa’s employment growth and economic momentum could be at stake if irrigation farms are not expanded.

Outbreaks of army worm have been reported in the Mokopane area in Limpopo and Rayton in eastern Gauteng.

Fresh from a child labour seminar in Brazil, labour minister Mildred Oliphant is to join teams of inspectors during the week-long blitz farm inspections in the Western Cape region of Citrusdal on Thursday, 17 October.

Cattle, sheep and goat farmers have been asked by parasitologists at Stellenbosch University (SU) to help update a map on tick distribution and establish whether and where four types of disease-carrying ticks in particular are found in the Western and Northern Cape.

The department of agriculture’s female entrepreneur of the year for 2013, Nomzamo Khosa, has come under fire for failing to pay investors on time.

Almost 15 000 seasonal workers in the Orange River region of the Northern Cape will not be employed this harvesting season, because of heavy frost damage to vines recently.

A new international record of R440,10/kg for super fine 24 microns, super style winter kids’ mohair was set by Theronnie van der Merwe of Murraysburg at the fourth sale of the winter season.

A veld fire is currently burning between Vrede and Memel in the eastern Free State. The fire started on 9 October on a farm near the Vrede-Volksrust road, according to the CEO of the Free State Umbrella Fire Association, Thinus Steenkamp.

The South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association (SAHGCA) has dishonourably expelled André Klopper (21) from the association for poaching.

Because a growing world population has put pressure on the demand for food, prices will rise moderately over the next 40 years, says Kuben Naidoo (Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus’s advisor), speaking at the Agri SA Congress today.

The proposed buyout of agri services and industrial food processing group Afgri by an international consortium has alarmed the African Farmers Union (Afasa), which has called on the ministers of trade and industry and agriculture, rural development and land reform to step in and prevent the deal.

Every year World Egg Day is celebrated on the second Friday in October to raise awareness of the great benefits of eggs.

Two suspects, Charles Marais (40) and Martinus Groenewalt (35), accused of stock theft amounting to R807 000, are expected to appear in the Brits Magistrates’ Court on Monday 7 October 2013 according to SAPS spokesperson, colonel Sabata Mokgwabone.

A fire, caused by lightning in the Thomas River area between Cathcart and Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape recently, claimed the life of a farm worker and severely injured another.

Normal weather patterns have been predicted for the summer cycle, but a dry spell looms over the next five years.

Freight logistics company Grindrod recently bought a sizeable chunk of NWK for R228 million. In doing so, it took up the 19,8% stake jointly owned by Zeder Investments and Thembeka Capital, and topped it up to 20% by way of 0,2% purchased from NWK itself.

Government claims to be acting in the interests of the rural poor to redress “a great historical wrong”, but land reform of the kind that it proposes is “essentially a charade”, said Dr Anthea Jeffery of the SA Institute of Race Relations

The retail prices of all grades of petrol, the wholesale prices of both grades of diesel and illuminating paraffin and the maximum retail prices of LPGas will be adjusted with effect from Wednesday, 2 October 2013.