MORNING NOTE: Thoughts on SA agriculture jobs
This is an important day in South Africa’s economics calendar. At 11h30 this morning, Statistics South Africa will release the Quarterly Labour Force Survey data for the second quarter of 2020. There is a broad consensus that we will see a notable increase in...
MORNING NOTE: Taking stock of recent domestic and global grains monthly data
My aim in this morning’s blog post is to provide an update of South Africa’s grain trade data for the week of 18 September 2020. I will also share highlights from the International Grain Council monthly global grains update report. SA grain trade data South Africa...
MORNING NOTE: South Africa’s winter crops are in good condition
The Western Cape, which is a major producer of South Africa’s winter crops – wheat, barley and canola – has had favourable rainfall over the past couple of months and the crop in the province is in good shape. The benefit of the rainfall is even clear on dam levels in...
MORNING NOTE: What does the shift to ‘level 1’ of the lockdown mean for SA agriculture?
The move to ‘level 1’ of the lockdown is a welcome step from a broader macroeconomic perspective, as this ensures that economic activity in the country continues to normalize gradually across more sectors of the economy. Within agriculture, the only segment that will...
MORNING NOTE: SA livestock and poultry industry faced with rising input costs
This must be a challenging year for the animal feed companies and by extension the livestock and poultry industry. The years of a large harvest like the 2019/20 season are typically followed by a notable decline in commodity prices which is beneficial to the livestock...
MORNING NOTE: SA Reflections on the SA weekly grains data and wheat import tariff
Regular readers of this blog may remember that on Mondays, I provide an update of South Africa’s weekly grain data, also at times with a highlight of various events in the agricultural data calendar for the week ahead. With a data calendar for the week ahead fairly...
Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity, and Agriculture.”
Sihlobo is Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.
He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 after serving on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture between 2018 and 2019.
He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC).
Sihlobo is a columnist for Business Day and Farmers Weekly magazine.