Opening SA agricultural exports to new markets deserves urgent attention
More trade deals and attention to infrastructure are key to supporting South Africa’s agricultural sector.
Collaboration helped to lift SA agricultural exports in Q3 despite port challenges
The agricultural exports were up by 8% y/y to US$3,4 billion in the third quarter of 2021. This puts South Africa’s agriculture, food and beverage exports for the first three quarters of this year at US$9,6 billion. The top exportable products were citrus, maize, wine, apples and pears, nuts, sugar, fruit juices, and wool, amongst other products. These products will likely continue dominating the export list in the fourth quarter of the year.
There is limited scope for growing South African agricultural exports in the African markets
South Africa’s agricultural sector is arguably one of the most vibrant on the continent. This has largely been occasioned by technological adaptation, sound knowledge, regional and overseas market access, and logistical efficiency. Hence, the importance of trade and logistics to South Africa’s agricultural sector cannot be over-emphasised.
Is South Africa’s trade policy failing the agricultural sector?
South Africa’s agricultural exports have grown significantly over the past two decades. Yet agricultural private-sector role players typically argue that the government has not done enough to open up new markets for ever-increasing produce.
The complexity of South Africa’s trade policy in agriculture
The export-led strategy underpinning SA’s trade policy entails a deliberate effort to get the country’s agriculture and other industrial sectors to export products beyond existing international markets. There are at least two diametrically opposing views about how well SA has done in executing this strategy in agriculture.
South Africa heads for another bumper year as yields rise and demand picks up
With 2021 set to present even larger yields than 2020 for SA’s major field crops, horticulture and wine, it is plausible that exports could also surpass last year’s second-largest export earnings record of $10.2bn.
South Africa’s agriculture master plan hinges on logistics industry
Logistics will again be tested in 2021. SA is gearing up for another year of a large agricultural harvest and therefore large export volumes, especially in the horticulture and field crop subsectors.
SA government should focus on the expansion of agricultural export markets
Despite a vibrant agricultural sector, there are a standard list of challenges that South African agribusinesses commonly cite – land reform policy, droughts and infrastructure are amongst the most frequently cited. However, a growing challenge facing firms – particularly those in beef, wool, fruit and wine – is the need to identify new markets.
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.