Letter from the editor

One of the greatest frustrations farmers face in modern agricultural value chains is that they are, to a large extent, relegated to being price-takers.

In May this year, The Economist ran a cover story that said that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.

Labour relations in the farming sector made headlines again these past few weeks after news broke of an unscrupulous labour broker operating from a farm in Wesselsbron in the Free State.

Not to take anything away from the remarkable way in which large-scale commercial agriculture has managed to improve production efficiencies (for the past two decades, yield growth has far outstripped resource use), but every now and then we need to pause and re-evaluate the path we are on.

You would probably not be able to guess this if you met me today, but when I was at school and during my years at university, I spent as much time as I could at the beach, surfing.

I cannot imagine a greater childhood than growing up on a farm.

These past weeks have seen the release of two of the most prominent decision-making tools for the farming sector: the local and global 10-year outlooks for the agricultural sector, published by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) respectively.

There is something about the utter absurdity of watching President Jacob Zuma stand in front of an audience of honest, hard-working South Africans, saying things like, “Funds that are allocated for public services must be used for public services and nothing else”, and “Nobody is above the law in our country” that deepens the frown lines on my forehead and causes me to exhale uneasily.

On a recent visit to Cape Town, I experienced what Capetonians have been coming to grips with over the past few months: learning how to drastically curb daily water usage.

In an article in this week's issue (28 July 2017) of Farmer's Weekly, former finance minister and current ANC MP, Pravin Gordhan, urges farmers to “make the first move” and “get the ball rolling” on transformation in the agricultural sector

Since October 2016, half the world’s population has been connected to the Internet. However, at only 30%, the number of connected people in Africa is still lower than the world average.

The farming sector generally views population growth as an opportunity rather than a challenge.