by Wandile Sihlobo | Jun 3, 2019 | Food Security
While the discussion about the African swine fever has largely focused on China, the likes of Vietnam are also reeling from its effects. The Vietnamese authorities are now asking farmers to diversify away from pork to other livestock – a difficult task, I imagine, for...
by Wandile Sihlobo | May 17, 2019 | Food Security
With South Africa’s meat prices being in deflation over the past few months, one would easily assume that the beef industry has recovered from the 2015/16 drought which led to a reduction in the herd. Figure 1 illustrates South Africa’s cattle herd, and boy, we are...
by Wandile Sihlobo | Apr 24, 2019 | Food Security
Animal health is increasingly becoming a key issue in South Africa. This year we’ve had cases of foot-and-mouth disease in the beef industry, and African swine fever in the pork industry. But the degree of impact to each industry has differed. In the case of beef, the...
by Wandile Sihlobo | Apr 17, 2019 | Food Security
South Africa’s food price inflation numbers continue to surprise us. The figures recently released by Statistics South Africa show that food price inflation remained unchanged in March 2019 at 2.3% for the third consecutive month. But the products price inflation...
by Wandile Sihlobo | Apr 10, 2019 | Food Security
The South African government has detected an outbreak of African swine fever on a farm in North West. The African swine fever is a fatal animal disease affecting pigs and wild boars with up to 100% mortality, but it is harmless to humans. Now, the reports suggest that...
by Wandile Sihlobo | Apr 9, 2019 | Food Security
While it remains a challenge to get a clear picture of the scale of damage to maize fields in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe after Cyclone Idai, my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest these countries will collectively have to import more than 1-million tonnes...
