South Africa

The 2021 Nampo Harvest Day scheduled for August this year has been cancelled. In 2020, the event that was to be held in May that year was also cancelled, and the decision was then taken to reschedule this year’s Nampo Harvest Day to August.

It is highly unlikely that maize prices will decline, despite industry stakeholders forecasting a record harvest this season.

The current cold spell being experienced across the Free State has greatly contributed to containing the severe locust outbreak in the Bultfontein area.

Botswana’s Department of Agricultural Development and Food Security announced on Monday, 31 May that import restrictions have been placed on the importation of live cloven-hoofed animals from South Africa.

With the local sugar industry under severe pressure, the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) would give South African farmers a better alternative than the oversupplied global sugar market, where farmers were selling sugar at a loss.

According to Elzette Schutte, operational manager of BerriesZA, a blueberry crop of 36 000t had been forecast for the 2021/2022 production season, up from 20 000t in 2020/2021. Schutte attributed this to new blocks of blueberry orchards in the Western Cape coming into production.

Agrochemical prices in South Africa continued on an upward trajectory during the past year, and should this trend continue, farmers could expect to pay much more for inputs during the 2021/2022 summer grain production season.

South African farmers have been warned that glyphosate-containing products used in the aerial spraying of maize are currently not registered.

Agricultural stakeholders have strongly condemned the possibility that, under a newly-revived legislative proposal, South Africans would not be allowed to own guns for self defence.

Friday, 21 May, marks International Tea Day and is celebrated across the globe to recognise the impact tea production has as the main means of subsistence for millions of poor families, according to the UN.

More than 130 000 birds have already been culled or died in the Western Cape to date as a result of the recent avian influenza outbreaks in the province, according to the Western Cape Department of Agriculture.

The MV Cool Eagle refrigerated cargo ship, which recently arrived in the Port of Durban, is able to accommodate 60% more fruit than older vessels.

The brown locust infestations across South Africa during the 2020/2021 season have obliterated all previous records, according to Nicol Jansen, Agri Northern Cape president.

The North West farming community has welcomed an announcement by the province’s premier Prof Tebogo Job Mokgoro that a total of R36,7 million has been spent in the first quarter of 2021 to repair roads that had been damaged by recent flooding.

South Africa’s commercial agricultural sector needs the same support as “new farmers”. This was the opinion of Christo van der Rheede, executive director of Agri SA, responding to the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (agriculture department), Thoko Didiza’s budget address delivered in Parliament on Thursday, 13 May.

With no new cases of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) being reported in South Africa this week, the outbreak seems to be under control, but the spread of the virus through wild aquatic birds is still anticipated.

With COVID-19 related lockdowns around the world resulting in increased demand for basic food items due to more home-cooking, food manufacturers saw it as an opportunity to slightly increase the prices of these items.

South Africa is expected to export a record 2,8 million tons of maize in the 2020/2021 marketing season, according to the latest estimate of the National Agriculture Marketing Council (NAMC).

The expenditure on agri-parks by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (agriculture department) came under scrutiny during a recent meeting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.

The slight reduction in the price of diesel that came into effect on Wednesday, 5 May, will only bring relief for farmers if it is sustained over several months.