The South African Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson and the Argentine Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Norberto Yauhar held discussions in Pretoria recently, on issues related to current agricultural and trade policies, world food security and bilateral cooperation.
The bilateral agreement will provide a framework to continue to implement substantive exchanges of experts, missions, activities, and direct contact with applied research institutions.
“The signing of the agreement will extend to exchanging ideas on fisheries related issues. Agriculture will also benefit from this partnership, since it is our mission to open markets in countries that are not our traditional trading partners,” said Joemat-Pettersson.
“Through our participation in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA) we have seen the benefits of forging partnerships with countries in Central and South America and our partnership with Argentina falls squarely within this framework of fostering ties,” she said.
Minister Yauhar highlighted that “the agreement will enhance South-South cooperation at all levels, in particular in the field of improvement of agriculture production efficiencies, sharing of technologies and promotion and facilitation of trade in agricultural products”.
SA and Argentina have an extensive historical relationship in the area of agriculture. In particular, the two countries share an interest in collaboration in relation to South African small scale farmers, no till technologies and biosafety.
Argentina has been participating in many sector events in SA, where the country has showcased Argentine agricultural capital goods that are produced by medium size companies. Argentine goods have been exhibited at the Nampo Harvest Day every year since 2008 and there has been a comprehensive bilateral collaboration in experimental fields on no till technologies since 2007.
