South Africa

Mpumalanga Agriculture has expressed concern about some government leaders and members of the public pre-judging the five accused who have appeared in the Piet Retief Magstrates’ Court in connection with the killing of two men on a farm in the district earlier this month.

A second case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been reported on a North West broiler breeder farm, where 14 000 birds have been culled.

Although South Africa’s cotton industry celebrated production growth of 800% over the preceding five years in 2019, the industry has shown a 40% decrease in hectares planted to the crop during the past two seasons.

The North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is expected to start culling 15 000 pigs infected with African swine fever (ASF) on a farm near Potchefstroom in North West.

It is not yet clear whether the outbreak of African horse sickness (AHS) in the protection zone of the Western Cape will have an impact on the EU’s auditing of the local horse industry to allow direct exporting of horses to the region.

The Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food security in Botswana has announced an immediate ban on the importation of all “domesticated and wild birds and their products such as meat, eggs and feathers from South Africa”.

The way in which the COVID-19 relief scheme for small-scale farmers was designed and how it was adapted over time says a lot about government’s understanding of farming and the food system.

The South African poultry industry is on high alert after the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (agriculture department) confirmed an outbreak of avian influenza on a commercial chicken layer farm in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng on Monday, 12 April.

Additional task teams need to be deployed in the Free State as a matter of urgency to act as a buffer against the rising crime rate, specifically to combat the high incidence of livestock theft along the Lesotho border.

Interested parties have until 30 April to submit written comments on draft guidelines aimed at enhancing the ethical transportation of livestock from South Africa by sea.

International fertiliser prices, except for potassium chloride, were at their highest levels in more than 24 months during March, according to Ikageng Maluleke, an agricultural economist at Grain SA.

Despite a challenging season, it is expected that the South African Table Grape Industry’s (SATI) crop estimate will be exceeded by more than two million cartons, making it the largest crop on record.

The severely damaged road system in the Free State is making it difficult for farmers in that province to deliver their crops to market, eroding agricultural profit margins in the process.

It is concerning that negotiations between the financially embattled Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa (Land Bank), the National Treasury, and the bank’s lenders, have exceeded the 31 March 2021 deadline to develop a mutually acceptable Commitment Agreement for the Land Bank’s operational restructuring and settlement of its substantial debt repayment requirements.

The poor performance of the former Department of Land Reform and Rural Development came under scrutiny during a recent Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development meeting.

Although the Crop Estimates Committee's (CEC), second production estimate for the 2020/2021 summer grain and oilseed production area was only adjusted upwards by 1%, there is room for further upward adjustments.

The Western Cape Department of Agriculture has established a rural safety desk as part of the province’s economic recovery plan.

If the Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa (Land Bank) and National Treasury cannot reach a mutually acceptable plan with the bank’s creditors on how its approximately R40 billion debt will be restructured and its misfortunes sustainably turned around, the agricultural sector faces an uncertain future.

Farmers cannot be held solely responsible for historical events that resulted in the dispossession of land, Annelize Crosby, head of land affairs at Agri SA, told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, 24 March.

South Africa’s summer and winter grain farmers will be particularly hard hit by the expected fuel price increases in April.