Africa’s food security under fire amid the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic will exacerbate an already dire situation of food shortage in some African countries. Professor Mzukisi Qobo (Head of Wits School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand), Isaah Mhlanga (Chief Economist at Alexander Forbes) and I have an essay...
Locust upsurge threaten Kenya’s already vulnerable food sector
If you read the international news on Africa this past weekend, you probably noticed that Time magazine (here), The Guardian (here), New York Post (here), The Japan Times (here), and the Financial Times (here) ran a similar story about the worst swarms of locusts...
Food insecurity could be reduced in SA if public and private sectors work together
As we commemorate World Food Day on 16 October 2019 in honour of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945, we should take a moment to reflect on South Africa’s standing on the global food security ladder. Food security...
Cucumber Time
Today I am working off-site in a small coffee shop in my neighbourhood. I’ve just ordered coffee and asked also for a glass of water. For some reason, the waiter brought water, saturated with cucumbers and lemon, which was not what I longed for, but it was...
Glitches on Blogs and African Agricultural Production
Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that the past week or so has been a hit-and-miss affair with broken links to online, and even emailed articles. A few weeks back I decided to revamp this blog, hoping to improve your reading experience. The service...
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“.
He is a Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 (and re-appointed in 2022), having served on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture from 2018.
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, The Herald and Farmers Weekly magazine.
His weekly podcast, “Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo“, is available on all podcast platforms.
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.