Opinion

Let’s be honest, living in South Africa can be really depressing, despite our many sunny days, beautiful scenery and generally long-suffering disposition.

Namibia is a reliable export and import partner for South Africa, and the two countries are closely linked politically and economically. This interdependency should be founded on mutual respect and support, says Roelie Venter, executive manager of the Namibia Agricultural Union.

South Africa’s latest minister of finance, Tito Mboweni, will have the unenviable task of trying to find at least some good news to share with financially exhausted South Africans when he delivers the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament on 24 October.

Food and nutrition insecurity remains a major problem worldwide. Alan Dangour, Professor in Food and Nutrition for Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explains how women in agriculture should be empowered to help address this situation.

Dan Kriek, the president of Agri SA, has had to weather some harsh criticism this year from within his own organisation, as well as from outside.

The two-day Presidential Jobs Summit is underway in Johannesburg to find answers to South Africa’s overwhelming unemployment crisis.

South Africans must join hands and look beyond political differences to take the agriculture sector forward through one of the most challenging times it has ever faced, according to Gerhard Kriel, CEO of Free State Agriculture.

During the early years of the current decade, encouraging progress was made in reducing the number of people across the world who suffer from hunger, but the gains made have mostly been wiped out over the past three years.

The one crucial point that should not be forgotten by all the organisations and political parties representing, or claiming to represent, the interests of various civil society groupings is the question of what will happen to land, or any other property, after it has been expropriated.

Many in the agriculture sector believe that government’s efforts to develop successful black farmers since 1994 have largely failed. Frans Cronje, CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, says this is because government spending is incorrectly prioritised, and that not nearly enough is being spent on farmer development.

Sometimes I think that if we could only somehow bottle the eternal optimism of the average South African, the profit we’d make would be enough to solve the country’s economic troubles.

The land debate has been dominating headlines in South Africa since December last year, and in the run-up to the national election in 2019, every politician hoping to win a seat in Parliament has expressed an opinion on the matter.

On the rare occasions when I manage to escape the city early enough on a Friday to drive the 450km from my office in Johannesburg to the farm where I grew up in northern KwaZulu-Natal, I usually pass through Ermelo on the town’s severely battered and potholed main road.

Local and global demand for almonds is on the increase as consumers begin to favour healthier food. Saturated production in the world’s largest production regions presents South African farmers with an unbeatable opportunity to enter the international market, according to economist Gilberto Biacuana.

Transformation in the farming sector, or any other sector, has not failed because too little effort and money have been invested in it.

Let me start by apologising to all the civil servants working for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), those hard-working citizens who show up at the office every day with an honest intention to contribute in some way to the future of the agriculture sector in South Africa.

This week we celebrate National Women’s Day in South Africa, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to say to, and about women in agriculture, to commemorate this day.

Newly-elected president of Wildlife Ranching SA, Tebogo Mogashoa, says transformation of the game industry and advocating for the legal trade in rhino horn will be among the top focal points for the organisation this year.

I am still busy processing the vast amount of ideas and information that were shared by the speakers and other participants at the 12th Agribusiness Africa Conference, hosted by Farmer’s Weekly in Johannesburg.

Many farmers are investing in new technologies that can help increase production and efficiency at farm level, but the uptake of digital trading technology has been slower. As a result, farmers are losing out on the opportunity to increase their share of profit earned along the agricultural value chain.