SA farmers are ‘agropreneurs’
Local farmers seek to create sustainable business ventures out of agro-commodities, goods and services with other role players in the value chain. They are not mere landowners, according to Christo van der Rheede, deputy executive director at Agri SA.
Breaking down the barriers of silence
Free State Agriculture (FSA) is committed to ongoing engagement with government in order to build trust and remove racial stereotyping, according to its president, Dan Kriek. Addressing the recent 2015 FSA congress in Bloemfontein, he said commercial farmers believed in democratic values and supported change, but that policies such as land reform had to be orderly and efficient.
Conserving the last lions
The king of the beasts may not survive the 21st century. Conflict with livestock owners in Africa, a growing demand in the Far East for large felid bones, shrinking habitat, poaching and unlawful hunting are all combining to narrow the odds for Panthera leo, one of the most revered animals on the planet, writes Dr Gerhard Verdoorn, South African hunter and conservationist.
Enough is enough! – TAU SA
Louis Meintjies, president of TAU SA, draws a line in the sand on how far commercial farmers
can be pushed, and calls on other farmers to join him in order to defeat this ‘psychological war’.
A collective stance is needed
Margareet Visser of the Labour and Enterprise Research Group, UCT, and Stuart Ferrer, director of the Agricultural Policy Research Unit, UKZN, discuss producer-level collective bargaining.
Good science to fuel the future
Dr Charlie Reinhardt, a botanist from the University of Pretoria, says the challenge of global food security can only be addressed with sound scientific research and development.
Farming competitively – it can be done!
Despite facing serious challenges, South African agriculture can nonetheless increase its competitiveness, both locally and internationally. Prof Gerald Ortmann, head of Agricultural Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, explores some of the options.
It’s not just about the money
In the struggle to eradicate poverty and hunger, the most important factor is people, not money. Unless a country is willing to better itself, no donor institution will succeed in transforming it, says Kanayo F Nwanze, president of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Our strengths, our problems and our future
SA has economic opportunities, but tough challenges. For farmers, positives are a sizeable domestic market and top local suppliers, says Wessel Lemmer, senior agricultural economist at Absa.
Sustaining the SA trout industry
South Africa’s trout industry has a meaningful socioeconomic role to play in the country’s
future, says llan Lax, chairperson of the Federation of SA Flyfishers.
Land reform – let’s stay out of the boxing ring
SA’s land reform debacle could destroy everything achieved since 1994, warns communications expert Prof David Venter. He was speaking at the recent Hortgro Science Symposium held near Franschhoek.
‘We need experienced positive people’ – Gwede Mantashe
Speaking on strategy to Eastern Cape farmers, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe stressed that white commercial farmers were the key to successful transformation. Moreover, rational and positive debate was needed to ensure that everyone benefited.
