Integrated financing for smallholder farmers
Africa’s agricultural potential can only be realised if smallholders gain access to finance. But loans cannot be focused on just one aspect of the value chain at the expense of...
Who should you vote for in the general election on 8 May?
From halting agricultural imports to bringing agriculture back to schools and the gathering of a great many minds for a land CODESA, these proposals are all contained in the many...
A sustainable approach to feeding the world by 2050
There is a large shortfall between the amount of food being produced in the world today and the quantity needed to feed an expected 10 billion people by 2050. A...
The difference half a degree of global warming can make
The ‘Global Warming of 1.5˚C’ report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights several climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1,5˚C, compared with...
Losing the food security fight
Despite significant improvements in agricultural production over the last two decades, food insecurity has been on the rise for the past three years.
Why smallholders need to think like entrepreneurs
As irrigation schemes are found mostly in areas with high poverty levels, smallholder irrigation presents major opportunities for reducing rural poverty. However, smallholder irrigation is performing below expectations. A new...
Agri training falling further behind
A widely held sentiment among farmers and agribusiness leaders is that South African agricultural colleges can no longer be trusted to produce appropriately trained, technically skilled professionals.
Study shows which policies succeed in developing agriculture
Research by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Institute for Sustainable Development analysed progress in agricultural development in 117 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to...
Self-development: shaping young farmers into future leaders
Dr René Uys, director of Thinking Fusion AFRICA, argues that young South African farmers need to have the emotional fortitude to face up to the often harsh realities of agriculture...
Who will pay to save the planet?
According to the Estimates of National Expenditure, which was tabled along with the budget in Parliament when Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered his budget speech recently, the money allocated to...
Prepare for the supermarket of the future
Disruptive change is coming to supermarkets and this will have a ripple effect throughout the food industry supply chain. According to Bjorn Thumas, director of business development at TOMRA Food,...
The sugar crisis is your problem
The South African sugar industry is facing a crisis, and the South African Cane Growers’ Association warns that this R14 billion/ year industry is in danger of “imminent collapse, putting 350 000...
Co-ops are making a comeback
The farming sector has a long tradition of depending on co-operative models that, in essence, offer groups of smaller or medium-sized farmers the same scale of benefits that would otherwise...
SA farmers need SAA-sized bailout
When agriculture sneezes, the whole economy catches a cold, the saying goes. We saw clear proof of this in 2018, when South Africa experienced a technical recession after the country’s...
Kenyan model shows how to support emerging farmers
Professor Cyril Nhlanhla Mbatha of Unisa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership outlines some key production and marketing strategies to help promote the economic sustainability of smallholder farmers, and therefore more...
Data sharing in the fresh produce industry
According to Ed Treacy, vice-president of supply chain efficiencies for the Produce Marketing Association (PMA), blockchain technology holds great possibilities for improving efficiency and traceability in the fresh produce sector....
Saving our medium-sized farms
Last year, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the Decade of Family Farming for the period from 2019 to 2028. The purpose of this initiative is to provide a framework for...
Africa’s swelling population problem
Overpopulation and managing population growth are some of the most difficult subjects to write about.
Homeland consolidation: a forerunner of land reform?
Zimbini Coka, a junior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Agricultural Economics, visited areas that became part of the Ciskei homeland through consolidation in the 1970s...
Time for Africa to treat agriculture as a business
Rural economies in Africa have become zones of economic misery. According to Dr Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, stimulating economic growth in these areas through agriculture and...
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