South Africa’s farm exports are an economic lifeline – with weak spots
South Africa’s agricultural exports are vulnerable because of reliance on a few markets and weaknesses in domestic logistics chains.
PODCAST: SA starts the 2022/23 summer crop season
South Africa is starting the 2022/23 summer crop production season this month. The preliminary insights suggest that we could have another good season.
Potential for growth in South Africa’s agriculture but testing times ahead
SA’s agricultural sector was one of the bright spots of our economy during the pandemic. This was the only sector that showed robust growth as others were constrained by lockdown restrictions, supply chain disruptions and reduced consumer activity.
Not all South African agriculture colleges are in a state of collapse
Elsenburg and Peritum are good examples of functioning agricultural colleges in South Africa.
PODCAST: Agricultural input prices elevated
While some farmers in the grains and oilseeds industry benefited from the unusually long period of large yields and higher prices, higher input costs since the start of 2020 have limited the benefits.
Interventions to help SA farmers and agribusinesses battling higher costs
While some farmers in the grains and oilseeds industry benefited from the unusually long period of large yields and higher prices, higher input costs since the start of 2020 have limited the benefits. For farmers in the horticulture industry, where commodity prices did not increase as much as in grains, the higher input costs were an even heavier burden
Comforting weather forecasts point to good rains for crops in SA
We are about a month away from the start of the 2022/2023 summer crop season. Farmers in SA’s eastern regions, which includes the eastern Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, will start planting by mid-October. This will primarily be summer grains and oilseeds.
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.