Agriculture News and Developments [Archive]

Nostra

January 17th, 2012, 01:15 PM

^^ I disagree. It's actually good that there are fewer people working in the agricultural sector and production is maintained or increasing. It's called productivity, a decade ago, a hectare of maize farm was producing 4-6 tons, over the past decade this is up to 8-10 tons, due to tech. Wages for farm workers in most areas rarely exceed R1000 and yet people say labour is expensive. If farmers find that expensive, what's stopping them from mechanisisng? It's simple economic logic, mechanise and create jobs.

From today's Business Day. Its clear that this guy wants govt to increase funding to the ARC, but using emotive language like crisis is unfortunate.

Technology hides crisis in farming sector, says expertAgricultural Research Council CEO Shadrack Moephuli says agricultural productivity increases have masked the sharp decline in the number of farmers in SA and that the sector is in a "crisis"
SARAH WILD
Published: 2012/01/17 08:49:55 AM

AGRICULTURAL productivity increases have masked the sharp decline in the number of farmers in SA and that the sector is in a "crisis", according to Agricultural Research Council (ARC) CEO Shadrack Moephuli.

"The major reason for us not realising that these farmers are going out of business, while we are still getting food on our tables, is technology," he said last week.

Last year, Deputy Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Pieter Mulder said the number of commercial farmers had declined from 60000 in 1996 to less than 40000 today.

"At the same time, you’ve had population growth," Dr Moephuli said. Technology had caused an increase in productivity, which was why there was still security of food supply. In the maize industry, for example, "10-15 years ago the yield per rain-fed hectare was four tons. Now it is about eight to 10 tons per hectare" because of the maize cultivars being grown.

Some of those crop-cultivar innovations were thanks to the research council, he said.

The council, which answers to both the departments of agriculture and science and technology, is the largest agricultural research institute in Africa.

However, "the agricultural sector is in a state of crisis", Dr Moephuli said. "The children of the current crop of commercial farmers are exiting the sector…. We need to find incentives for people to become interested in being farmers and growing food for the rest of us."

Agricultural Business Chamber CEO John Purchase yesterday disagreed that the sector was in crisis. "There are concerns in the industry for it to remain competitive," he said, citing agro-logistics, technology, energy security, water quality and attracting skills to the sector as concerns.

"What’s important is that productivity has improved considerably. Average yield per hectare has more than doubled in the last 15 years, primarily because of technology."

However, while the council played a major role in South African agriculture in the past, farmers were becoming increasingly dependent on international sources for technology, Dr Purchase said.

Dr Moephuli defended the council’s low research targets, saying "that has to do with historical underinvestment in the ARC. After 20 years of giving a parliamentary grant that is suboptimal, it starts to wear on the institution."

The council received total revenue of R870m in 2010-11, with a parliamentary grant responsible for R590m and the rest coming from external and "other" income. The majority of this goes towards salaries.

There is an additional tension, which is that the council is split between two ministries.

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said last year that science councils, including the research council, should be controlled by her department. This would ensure they were properly run and appropriately funded, she said.

Ms Pandor has commissioned a ministerial review of science councils and institutions, to gauge whether they should fall under the department or their line ministries. The review is expected to be published later this year.

With Hopewell Radebe

So I reiterate, this tendency of blaming everything, including agricultural productivity, on the govt is getting stale. A decline in farmers combined with an increase in production is a very good thing, as it frees up labour and money to be allocated to far more productive sectors such as manufacturing, retail, finance...

The only reason farmers in the EU receive subsidies is because they're a very important constituency not because it's sound economics, unfortunately in SA they're not...

annman

January 17th, 2012, 01:29 PM

^^ If the manufacturing sector was creating jobs en masse, I would agree. However, manufacturing is not growing as it should, and financial, service and retail sectors have few to no opportunities for the unskilled. Agriculture is not a particularly lucrative growth sector, anywhere in the world. However, in a country where job-creation is supposed to take utmost precedence, the lack of labour-intensive agriculture is regretable.

ToxicBunny

January 17th, 2012, 01:59 PM

Nostra, you miss the point about having to let the person live in till they pass on...

Yes, they no longer get a salary from the farmer, but they occupy farm realestate that can now no longer be used by the farmer for his active employees, therefore has to build more homes.. etc etc.. its a vicious cycle that would get out of hand VERY quickly.

annman

January 17th, 2012, 02:31 PM

^^ Doesn't get out of hand, they just stop hiring people. That's the sad part. A government claiming "job-creation above all else," yet implementing policy that has that result is shameful.

Econ77

January 17th, 2012, 03:08 PM

^^ Nostra i have to disagree as well. Productivity yes, but only because of improving farming techniques. Farmers are forced to be more and more capital intensive. Capital in SA has much more value than labour, especially unschooled labour. We have an absolute abundance of that. If we could have applied our unschool labour to farming and our capital to other industries, then we would become more competitive on the whole.

Ideal would have been if agriculture could have produced much more at much less, and also employ loads of people in the process.

The reality is unfortunately, that farming in SA will always be politically charged, and that the scenario i described above seems impossible here. (P.s. i'm not actually alarmist either, but i don't agree that farming is heading in a positive direction in SA)

Marsupalami

January 18th, 2012, 12:38 AM

Too some degree, can this on-site labour force that being filtered out be re-absorbed in processing/packing related jobs? - and are some produce farms unable to mechaise fully - ie : strawberries, apples, veg ( I'm not sure on these, but do they have machines for delicate picking? )

annman

January 18th, 2012, 07:09 AM

^^ I suppose some labour could. Unfortunately, in the interior Western Cape districts, the produce is very wine and table-grape centric. I already know most pack-stores are cold-sheds in the Hex River Valley are pretty fully staffed. The problem is in that work for the unskilled is scarce, so often the "alternative employment opportunities" are already pretty saturated with labour; there simply aren't the number of vacancies (by any stretch of the imagination) to make-up for mechanisation.

Also, few farmers actually dismiss workers. Dismissal on "cutting down on labour" grounds is almost impossible. They simply write up offenders when absent-without-permission, intoxicated-in-work, violent-behavior-on-premises, destruction-to-domicile etc. These things are legal grounds for dismissal (especially after 2 written warnings at disciplinary hearing); often the unneeded staff are fired on aforementioned legal grounds.

Sad consequence of unionisation and tough labour laws as well is the slow erosion of tolerance for low socio-economic issues arising. 15-Years ago most aforementioned offences where accepted as "part of the labour." Now, the tolerance level has dropped and these transgressions most often lead in legal dismissal.

mariocesare

January 18th, 2012, 11:10 PM

Hello everybody,
I'm writing from Italy :) and I'm asking for your help. As you can see in my signature, I opened a thread about wineries built by modern (but not only) architecture.
As I know in your country the wine production is very important, maybe someone of you who knows local wineries could add one ore more posts about them in the thread.
Thank you!!! :)

rubbercenter

January 19th, 2012, 05:06 AM

Another article on SA farmers being sought-after outside our borders...

http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2729:130112-georgia&catid=42:landnews&Itemid=110

The know-how and experience of South African farmers is becoming an important and sought after commodity in itself.
Increasingly these farmers are being approached by foreign governments wishing to tap into their agricultural skills and years of experience.
The latest exchange has seen five farmers moving to Georgia in Eastern Europe over the course of 2011, while almost 800 South African farmers have already moved or extended their farms into Mozambique.
Further afield, the governments of Congo-Brazzaville and Zambia have also started making overtures to both South African and Zimbabwean farmers, as these countries have plans to get grand scale food production off the ground.
The impoverished former Soviet state entered into an agreement with South Africa in 2010, and hopes to see many more South African farmers settling there in the near future.
The exchange has taken place at the initial invitation of the Georgian government through its Minister of Diaspora, Papuna Davitaia,with the collaboration of the Transvaal Agricultural Union South Africa (Tau SA).
Georgia plans to bring its agricultural sector back up to global commercial standards after years of communist rule.
The country has one of the oldest winemaking histories in the world but has been struggling for the last 21 years, since becoming independent, to lift its agricultural sector from the current subsistence farming to commercial farming levels. The main export products are wine and hazelnuts.
The South African farmers will bring their years of experience in cattle farming and the growing of cereal crops on large tracts of land to Georgia.
"The state owns agricultural land in each of the 10 provinces and wishes to sell such land to commercial farmers," confirms Tau SA’s GM, Bennie van Zyl. He said about 80 000 hectares of state property is available, not all of it suitable for farming, but that private farms are also readily available.
In general, soil is much cheaper than in South Africa but Van Zyl predicts that once Georgia joins the European Union, as it hopes to do in the near future, the value of these water-rich farm properties will escalate considerably.
First harvests already in
Already the first grain and maize cultivated by a South African have been harvested in Georgia. Sixty-seven-year-old Piet Kemp, who arrived in Georgia in March 2011, has harvested grain which was in the fields when he arrived, planted and harvested a crop of maize, and despite floods and hail, still managed a reasonable crop in the same year.
He has once more planted grain, which in these cold parts is sowed just before the first snow falls, and now awaits a good crop when spring arrives. In an interview on ABN Digital, Kemp said he plans to become a Georgian citizen in time.
"I just want to be a farmer and produce food," he said.
However, life is not without challenges in this new country. While the climate near Tbilisi, the Georgian capital where Kemp farms, is surprisingly similar to what he is used to in the colder Highveld region of Mpumalanga province, the language and alphabet is certainly not. To overcome this, Kemp requires an interpreter constantly at his side and, while his work force is for the most enthusiastic and up to the task, the negative impact of socialism and communism on the country has been debilitating.
"The ability to be an entrepreneur has literally been destroyed during the 70 years under Soviet rule. It's a poor, hurt country," adds Van Zyl.
In an effort to fast-track the project, the Georgian government has also requested the services of an advisory committee of three South African agricultural experts to assist them for a period of between three months and one year with the project.
South Africans do not need a visa for Georgia. Van Zyl says in total about 25 South African farmers are in one way or another already involved in helping to develop the country, while many more have shown interest.
Surprisingly, Georgia also shares some past history with South Africa in the shape of Prince Niko Bagrationi, a Georgian aristocrat who so strongly associated with the Boers' cause that he volunteered and fought against the British during the second Boer War (1899 – 1902).
On a recent visit to Georgia, a delegation of South African farmers was on hand to open a museum dedicated to Bagrationi and his many escapades.

Nostra

January 20th, 2012, 11:22 AM

annman

January 20th, 2012, 12:02 PM

Check out this week's Financial Mail, they have a pretty comprehensive feature on all these issues we been discussing. Another thing we've overlooked has been the increase in farm sizes as a driver of productivity and the decrease in the number of farmers.

That is definitely true. The family-farm is becoming extinct worldwide, as economically viable farm sizes grow larger and smaller farmers go bust; large farmers are getting larger and small farms are being swallowed up.

This may be something our Dept. of Rural Development and Land Restitution must look at. Empowering small emerging farmers will not work in the long-term in the global agri-economic climate. Land claimants should perhaps be organised into larger empowerment conglomerates that can be afforded the economy-of-scale required to succeed.

annman

January 25th, 2012, 11:59 AM

www.news24.com

Land restitution 'could be doubled'
2012-01-25 11:45

Johannesburg - The government's land restitution programme could have bought twice as much land if beneficiaries were not given money, a survey has found.

"Despite the provincial difference in land costs, the bottom line is that money provided for financial compensation could have bought a great deal more land for black land reform beneficiaries had they not received money instead," SA Institute of Race Relations researcher Kerwin Lebone said on Wednesday.

The institute's SA Survey, published this week, found that the government had spent R12.1bn to transfer just over 2.6 million hectares of land as part of its restitution programme between 1994 and 2009.

Almost R5.7bn had been given to beneficiaries who received money instead of land. Based on the average cost per hectare, the money could have been used to buy an additional 2.6 million hectares.

The survey was based on the national average cost per hectare, which concealed provincial distortions.

Land costs for the restitution programme were about R12 400 per hectare in Gauteng and only slightly less than R200 in the Free State.

In the Free State, the amount given in financial compensation could have bought 12 times the hectares received by land restitution beneficiaries, the survey found.

- SAPA

ToxicBunny

January 25th, 2012, 01:22 PM

I really hope someone didn't pay for this "survey".. its something that could have been seen by easily looking at basic numbers.. plus they use a national average for the cost per hectare.... which obviously will skew the numbers DRASTICALLY.

The R12.1bn they have used to buy the 2.6m hectares works out on average at R4654 per hectare.

The 5.7bn they've paid out in cash would only have bought 1.2m hectares at the average price they've paid out to buy the 2.6m hectares so far. The national average is roughly R2192 per hectare given the basic maths they've used in this "survey"

Nostra

January 25th, 2012, 02:29 PM

^^I'm generally suspicious of SAIRR surveys. Their methodologies are never explained nor seem rigorous and the results always seem to be quite populist. You've just pointed out a glaring weakness in the methodology...

Recently they also said SA's population will peak in 2040, (can the actuaries and statisticians in the house confirm) and they spun that as bad news. I personally think our population should not peak at more than 55M and 60M in worst case scenario...

Diggerdog

January 26th, 2012, 07:20 AM

Higher maize prices boost plantings

January 24 2012 at 03:48pm
South African farmers have planted 11 percent more acreage this season compared to last year because of higher prices while wheat output is seen higher than previously expected, a government agency said on Tuesday.

South Africa's Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) said the preliminary area cultivated under maize for the 2012 season was at 2.63 milion hectares, compared with 2.37 million hectares in the previous season.

The area included 1.59 million hectares of white maize and 1.04 million hectares of yellow maize.

“(The higher plantings) is because of favourable producer prices,” CEC spokeswoman, Marda Scheepers, said.

South Africa's maize prices are roughly double their levels of a year ago.

The most active March white maize contract ended down 0.07 percent on Tuesday at 2,686 rand ($340) a tonne, but remains near its record highs.

Yellow maize for delivery in the same month was steady at 2,720.20 rand a tonne. It had hit a record high of 2,764 rand a tonne during the session.

South Africa, the biggest producer of maize on the continent, harvested 10.36 million tonnes of maize in the 2010/11 season. But the country is now importing maize to make up for deficits due to export commitments.

South African maize prices are around record highs as stocks remain tight until the next marketing season starts in May.

The committee raised its 2011 wheat crop estimate to 1.85 million tonnes from 1.773 million tonnes, citing better-than-expected yields. - Reuters

Yuri S Andrade

January 30th, 2012, 10:37 PM

Randomly, I see the apple production has increased year on year for the same period...my point is - how is this possible if more than two thirds of the workforce, the farmers, have disappeared?

Serious question...

Well, 3,000 of them were murdered since 1994. Maybe we have a clue there.

Anyhow, it's quite disturbing these bad news over SA agriculture. Farming is transforming huge sections of Brazilian territory. In Mato Grosso, planned and very wealth cities (the largest of them with 110,000 people) appeared in the middle of nothing due the crops for the past 20 years. Hundreds of thousands of people from southern states migrated to the Midwest to make a new life there and responds for almost the entire production of the region.

Brazilian grain production last year was of 160 million t (85% of them from Sul and Centro-Oeste regions). It would be great if South Africa followed Brazil's lead in this industry. The revenues are insane.

SA BOY

January 31st, 2012, 05:21 AM

and environmental destruction irreversible

Yuri S Andrade

January 31st, 2012, 02:37 PM

^^
Not in Brazil, especially not in Mato Grosso. Every farm should keep 20% of its area as forest reserve (not couting the forest by the rivers and hills, which are also mandatory). In Mato Grosso, as half of the territory is part of Amazon ecosystem, the number is of 80%. That's right, 80%. There's no country in the world with a tougher legislation on this regard.

Agriculture responds for 8% of Brazilian GDP (US$ 2.5 trillion in 2011). The so-called agribusiness is at least 4 times as bigger, responding for more than 1/3 of the country's economy. The producing regions are among the wealthiest in the country. While poverty is of 31% in Brazil (households making less than US$ 180 per capita/month), in those regions is between 10-15%.

I believe South Africa has an huge potential on it, as agriculture is as much as about human tradition than it's about geography. And South Africa got it: no wonder one of its people is called Boere. I hope South African officials appreciate this and help this sector to bring billions and billions of dollars to the country.

Nostra

January 31st, 2012, 03:11 PM

^^Mate, although SA is a relatively fertile country, water is the problem, the country is semi-arid unlike Brazil which has some of the greatest rivers in the world and some of the biggest dams. A comparison is not valid IMO...

And the politics of land are very different, here land ownership is still contested to this very day.

Yuri S Andrade

January 31st, 2012, 03:42 PM

Nostra

January 31st, 2012, 04:27 PM

^^
I'm aware of SA's "bad weather" and precisely because of that the government should address this issue. The country could not have lost 83,000(3,000 of them killed) farmers in the past 15 years. That just couldn't have happened.

But what about the advantages of South Africa over Brazil? The first world infrastructure, for example? In Brazil, to export the grain, we have lines of trucks of over a 100 km. Go to Google Earth and check Paranaguá's habour (looking more like a fisherman port), near Curitiba, in Paraná state. The lines go beyond Curitiba.

Of course South Africa has its limitations, but the political environment is ten times worse than geography. With the right (normal) conditions, South Africans could easily double the agricultural output.

Brazilian 3 southernmost states have together 27 million people; Mato Grosso, 3 million. Agribusiness, over this big and fairly populated area, has been building there any huge middle-class and eradicating poverty. South Africa can do much better than it's doing now.

Responding to the bolded part: SA has not lost 83 000 farmers over the past 17 years, it never had that many farmer to begin with. Secondly, I was not aware that SA infrastructure was better than Brazil, in fact I thought Brazil was doing better in this regard.

Lastly you have to appreciate that in SA land is very politicised, there is a drive to undo the effect of 1913 land, (which drove black people from the land into quasi-reservations, I'm not even talking about colonial period where the presence of blacks is heaviliy contested, obviously this is self-serving BS), this combined with the Zim land invasions has traumatised farmers and many refuse/reluctant to invest.

SA has not normalised yet and the issue of land reform has to be resolved, give it time. It will be an agricutural powerhouse...

Yuri S Andrade

January 31st, 2012, 05:08 PM

^^
There were 120 000 commercial farmers in South Africa in 1994 and only 37 000 remained, which has led to SA importing some of the food it used to produce, said AgriSA vice president Theo de Jager.

And stressing 3,000 of them killed, making farming in SA one of the most dangerous job in the world. In Brazil, a violent country, we can count on the fingers the number of farmers murdered in this period. I recall of no case in my state over the past ten years. About infrastructure, Brazil is doing better today, but you'll have the legacy which way better. First world stuff, really.

And finally, I think is utterly silly (maybe criminous) to spend energy over things which took place 100 years ago. 2012's South Africa needs badly this money. We're talking about easily of tens and tens of billions of dollars, poured in rather problematic areas of Orange and Transvaal.

Nostra

February 1st, 2012, 11:04 AM

^^

And stressing 3,000 of them killed, making farming in SA one of the most dangerous job in the world. In Brazil, a violent country, we can count on the fingers the number of farmers murdered in this period. I recall of no case in my state over the past ten years. About infrastructure, Brazil is doing better today, but you'll have the legacy which way better. First world stuff, really.

And finally, I think is utterly silly (maybe criminous) to spend energy over things which took place 100 years ago. 2012's South Africa needs badly this money. We're talking about easily of tens and tens of billions of dollars, poured in rather problematic areas of Orange and Transvaal.

A simple google search shows that there's plenty of violence in Brazil's agriculture communities, between activists and the farmers. Seems like the big farm boys are murdering anti-deforastation activists. Anyways that's besides the point.

As for your opinion that getting restitution is silly and criminous (criminal?), that's just your opinion. It has no bearing on the situation. The people (majority) have given the govt the mandate to get the land back in as orderly a manner as possible, so far they doing a crappy job. The principle though enjoys massive support in the country. Obviously those who'll be negatively affected are opposed to it, but no matter. BTW Orange and Trasvaal are outdated terms, was that some sort of sentimental throwback on your behalf?

Yuri S Andrade

February 1st, 2012, 02:50 PM

^^
Ok, I know nobody has an obligation to know the particularities of a foreign country, but those murderers in Brazil usually take place in Pará state, a frontier-land in Amazon, which responds, despite its size, for barely 1% of Brazilian agricultural output. You can hardly say there are commercial farmers up there, so it's no way comparable with those 3,000 well-settled commercial farmers murdered in South Africa. My home-state (3,000 km away from Pará), Paraná, responds for 23% of Brazilian grain production and I have no recolection of farmers being killed here in the past 10 years.

But you see, if you think it's the best track for South Africa to put out of business 70% of its commercial farmers (3% killed, and a bit more counting the tortured survivors), well it's difficult to argue with that. BTW, doesn't South Africa have statute of limitations/verjaring in its legal system? Let's see how much extra revenue (and taxes) Saffers will make out of this. And I fail to see how Transvaal and Orange are outdated terms.

Nostra

February 1st, 2012, 03:20 PM

Yuri S Andrade

February 1st, 2012, 03:49 PM

^^If 70% of farmers can disappear and production remains the same, then it shows that farming pre-94 was very inefficient. In other words there was a lot deadweight loss in the economy as a lot of human/economic resources were being diverted to farming even though they were not contributing much, this is definition of economic inefficiecy...

You really don't understand how agriculture works. It's not only about the output, but the whole chain, including retail, machinery, universities, research, etc. Yes, it's waaaay better to have more people living on the production than only a couple of tycoons residing in Johannesburg, or more likely, in London. I'm talking about the declining middle-class of cities like Klerksdorp, Nelspruit, Pietersburg, Witbank, among others depending on farming to survive or even better, to exist. In addition, do you really think it's normal 3% of the labour force (probably the same ammount of tortured) being killed?

Anyhow, in 1994, South Africa produced 16 million t of cereals. In 2010, 14.5 million t. Brazil went from 68 million t to 163 million t of grains (cereals+soybeans). My state, Paraná, well-settled for decades, small/mid size properties based, lacking of space (199,000 km², 6 times smaller than SA), went from 14 million t to 33 million t. And like I mentioned before, the country has its own (and serious) problems. Also, the government did/does to help this increase.

lol, I see in another thread you were comparing name changes to ethnic cleansing, even going as far as saying Vervwoedsburg is better than Centurion. Syill living in the past hey...

Verwoerdburg sounds more South African and I prefer it. And yes, changing names is recognized by UN as ethnic cleansing. Anyhow, killing 3,000 out of 110,000 Boere and making 70,000 others to flee, fits very well under this definition.

Nostra

February 1st, 2012, 04:09 PM

You really don't understand how agriculture works. It's not only about the output, but the whole chain, including retail, machinery, universities, research, etc. Yes, it's waaaay better to have more people living on the production than only a couple of tycoons residing in Johannesburg, or more likely, in London. In addition, do you really think it's normal 3% of the labour force (probably the same ammount of tortured) being killed?

Anyhow, in 1994 South Africa produced 16 million t of cereals. In 2010, 14.5 million. Brazil went from 68 million t to 163 million t. And like I mentioned before, the country has its own (and serious) problems. Also, the government did/does to help this increase.

Verwoerdburg sounds more South African and I prefer it. And yes, changing names is recognized by UN as ethnic cleansing. Anyhow, killing 3,000 out of 110,000 Boere and making 70,000 others to flee, fits very well under this definition.

I might not know how agriculture works but I know how economics works and what efficiency is. And one of the lessons is that subsidies lead to overproduction, which leads to allocative inefficiency as marginal cost is higher than marginal benefit. In layman's terms, the agricultural sector was too big (pre-1994) and was a drag on society, the subsidies that were propping it up where being taken from areas where there would have been much higher societal benefit such as housing, water, and infrastructure, hence despite 70 000 decline in farmers, there's still no hunger (widespread) and we're all well-fed and happy...

I'm not aware of the dynamics of Brazil, but good for them if they could increase grain production by that much. Whether such (over)production is economic or not we'll eventually find out...

Regarding the issue of genocide, I've got to say that I've seen it come up time and again, personally I think its melodrama. But maybe my natural bias as a black South African blinds me to it. Let's ask our fellow Afrikaans forumers here, do you guys feel like the black people of SA are gunning for you? And changing names like Verwoedsburg, Pietersburg/Nelspruit/ is tantamount to genocide?

Yuri S Andrade

February 1st, 2012, 04:24 PM

^^
Well, it's a shame we have so few material available in English about cities like Sorriso, Lucas do Rio Verde, Nova Mutum, Sapezal, at Mato Grosso state. Their affluence is not matched even by the White Saffers standards. In the way more populated and well-settled South, we have many big and wealth cities living solely on farming/agribusiness. Londrina, Maringá, Cascavel, Chapecó, Passo Fundo, among others. I could post figures about their GDP, household income, retail, car sales, prevalence of poverty, etc., but it would be way off-topic.

About over-production, the prices are on their highest and the market is the most solid. In terms of value added, 163 million t in 2010, would represent at least 250-300 million t back in 1994. And about hunger, that's not the issue to be addressed at all. We're talking about big money, hundreds of thousands of jobs all over the country, strong and growing middle-class, research, etc.

Anyhow, about the genocide stuff, I wouldn't like to keep on about it as its off-topic and too serious to be discussed in such dismissive way. But it's a shame you cannot appreciate the situation on the grounds you're black. So let's put this way: let's imagine a pack of whites killed 3,000 of an imaginary 110,000 people Bantu group in the past 15 years. What would it be your reaction? Or even better: what would it be the world's reaction?

Nostra

February 1st, 2012, 04:59 PM

Anyways we're really digressing....

LADEN

February 1st, 2012, 06:45 PM

^^
.

Anyhow, about the genocide stuff, I wouldn't like to keep on about it as its off-topic and too serious to be discussed in such dismissive way. But it's a shame you cannot appreciate the situation on the grounds you're black. So let's put this way: let's imagine a pack of whites killed 3,000 of an imaginary 110,000 people Bantu group in the past 15 years. What would it be your reaction? Or even better: what would it be the world's reaction?

10 million congolese killed by belgians. And it is no imaginary group. You seem to be bias, blacks, whites, coloureds, asians are all affected by violence in SA.

LADEN

February 1st, 2012, 06:56 PM

lol, I see in another thread you were comparing name changes to ethnic cleansing, even going as far as saying Vervwoedsburg is better than Centurion. Syill living in the past hey...

:cripes: :bash:

Hendrik Verwoerd is the guy that implemented apartheid. It's very clear that this dude is still living in the past and dislikes black South Africans. I remember in another thread he said the ANC government controlling SA was worse than apartheid. :ohno::ohno:

Centurion is named after a roman god lol

Yuri S Andrade

February 1st, 2012, 07:10 PM

10 million congolese killed by belgians. And it is no imaginary group. You seem to be bias, blacks, whites, coloureds, asians are all affected by violence in SA.

10 million Congolese killed by Belgians? Very hard to believe a few thousands of XIX century men lost in the middle jungle could do this. In one way or another, I don't recall people saying there was nothing wrong with Congo Free State. Even Belgian government decided to put it down on 1908.

And could you please provide data showing any of those groups were targeted on the same intensity as white farmers? Not to mention, all the attacks were accompanied with racial slurs and hate speech. You can't really see outside the box? How do you think the world would react if white thugs killed thousands of blacks in this very same manner? It's quite disturbing to be obligated to do this kind of reverse reasoning in order to arouse some sort of empathy.

:cripes: :bash:

It's very clear that this dude is still living in the past and dislikes black South Africans. I remember in another thread he said the ANC government controlling SA was worse than apartheid. :ohno::ohno:

Centurion is named after a roman god lol

If you got this from these 6 or 7 long posts of mine, you really have a problem.

And no, I don't live in the past and I'm in no way connected to SA in a personal level, especially to its past, as I'm not even old enough. And yes, Centurion is a Roman name, that's why I said it doesn't sound South African.

annman

February 1st, 2012, 09:16 PM

^^ All, please stay on topic. Congo and Belgian colonisation has little, if nothing to do with agriculture in South Africa. Please refrain from straying, slippery-sloping and targeted racial argumentation.

Nostra

February 7th, 2012, 09:01 AM

70 000 farmers less and we're still able to produce a 30% surplus. Crisis? What crisis?

SA is a net food exporter, selling abroad 30% more agricultural goods than it imported in 2010, according to the latest survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations.

Agricultural exports grew by 10% between 2008 and 2010, with total agricultural exports amounting to US$6.8 billion in 2010.

During the same period, agricultural imports increased by just less than 1% and amounted to $5.2 billion, the survey shows. Agricultural exports stood at 5% of SA's total exports in 2010, with agricultural imports accounting for 2% of total imports.

The institute's analysis was based on data supplied by the Foreign Agricultural Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.
The data revealed that the Netherlands was SA's largest agricultural export destination, accounting for a little over 10% of SA's total exports in 2010, worth $700 million.

Between 2008 and 2010, the demand for SA agricultural exports grew in Asia and Africa while the proportion of such exports going to European countries declined.

Argentina has remained SA's largest source of agricultural imports since 2008. However, the proportion of such imports from Argentina has fallen from 17% in 2008 to 12% in 2010, when they were worth $628 million.

The ratio of agricultural imports to exports has increased since the mid-1960s, when the ratio of imports to exports stood at 1:5. (wow so in the sixties SA used to export 5 times more than it imported, and yet the majority of the population couldn't get a square meal and looked skinny as hell)

In the decade between 1995 and 2005 the ratio of agricultural imports to exports stood at 2:3. In 2007 agricultural imports temporarily exceeded agricultural exports by a ratio of 11:10.

"Recent data indicates that demand for South African agricultural products is not only holding steady, but is in fact growing," said Mr Jonathan Snyman, a researcher at the institute. "Food security is an especially precarious state of affairs in sub-Saharan Africa, so it is a positive development that SA has maintained its status as a net agricultural exporter."

http://www.businesslive.co.za/southafrica/sa_markets/2012/02/01/sa-remains-a-net-food-exporter---survey

Diggerdog

February 7th, 2012, 10:59 AM

Good news.
I know the value of our wine exports has increased dramatically in the last few years, as we target more premium markets.
That trend looks set to continue.

JohanSA

February 7th, 2012, 01:35 PM

Who said agriculture is in crisis ? Agriculture is a lucrative business and if you want confirmation of that just look at the increasing prices of agricultural land . What is in crisis is agriculture jobs . This is in part due to modern trends but largely because of pressure from unions and government ( COSATOs motto is f@*k the jobless we only care about the working ) making farm workers unemployable . Through partnerships , increased worker productivity and responsibility the prosperity gained from agriculture could have been shared by a far bigger segment of the population.

Yuri S Andrade

February 8th, 2012, 12:19 AM

^^
We can try to see the bright side of everything. But the reality is way more harsh:

Anyhow, in 1994, South Africa produced 16 million t of cereals. In 2010, 14.5 million t. Brazil went from 68 million t to 163 million t of grains (cereals+soybeans). My state, Paraná, well-settled for decades, small/mid size properties based, lacking of space (199,000 km², 6 times smaller than SA), went from 14 million t to 33 million t. And like I mentioned before, the country has its own (and serious) problems. Also, the government did/does to help this increase.

South Africa stopped while the international demand for farming products trebled. Competitors, like Brazil, took full advantage, making hundreds of billions of dollars over this period. South African know-how and infrastructure all wasted.

Yuri S Andrade

February 8th, 2012, 01:18 AM

BTW, while "South African Institute of Race Relations" (!!! Are these the people in charge of SA agriculture?!?!?! Confusing...) celebrates the US$ 6.8 billion, Brazil exported in 2010 US$ 76.4 billion in agricultural products [1 (http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/selecao-diaria-de-noticias/midias-nacionais/brasil/brasil-economico/2011/01/13/exportacao-agropecuaria-bate)].

I couldn't find figures for the 1990's, but it's quite obvious we had a completely different picture, way more favorable to South Africa.

Diggerdog

February 8th, 2012, 02:19 AM

Whatever Yuri, we are very happy for Brazil.

And we are happy that there has been improvement in our sector in the last 3 years.

Yuri S Andrade

February 8th, 2012, 02:53 AM

^^
I'm not. I'd be happy if SA kept its share, instead of becoming an insignificant player in this industry.

It seems SA officials also know how tragic was this complete SA retreat and now keep doing these cheap propaganda in form of press releases, instead of tackling the problem.

Diggerdog

February 8th, 2012, 04:05 AM

Yuri, you are presenting a very limited view of South Africa's agricultural sector here.

For instance, you talk only about grains, but what South Africa's other top agricultural exports, like wine. It earns big foreign revenue, as does fruit, like oranges, and sugar exports and maize.

In fact, Fruits, Nuts and Wine are the biggest export earners, and during recent times, these sectors have boomed, along with seafood exports and others.

Prior to 1994 the wine industry was rigid and uncompetitive, exports were around the 22 million litre mark and mostly low value/bulk wine.
Today, the wine industry is booming, our exports have climbed to well over 350 million litres a year, and crucially, a high percentage of that volume is premium table wine.

So the blanket image you are trying to portray of an entire sector going down the tubes is quite incorrect.

Yuri S Andrade

February 8th, 2012, 02:39 PM

annman

February 8th, 2012, 03:35 PM

Nostra

February 8th, 2012, 04:17 PM

^^
What is limited about? The figures for exports are quite clear: 76.4 bi vs. 6.8 bi. I don't have the figures, but I wouldn't be surprised if South African exports in the early 1990's were larger than Brazil's. In the 1980's and 1990's, Brazil went so far as purchasing milk from Europe and rice from Asia. Today, Brazilian agricultural exports today are 12 times as larger than SA's, even though Brazilian Real is overvalued while Rand is way undervalued.And wine?!?! Are you serious? An elitist industry in the wealthiest part of SA needs everything but support. I'm talking about tens of billions of dollars that impoverished small cities in Orange or Transvaal could export every year. Not to mention the 3,000 brutal murders which scared away 70,000 farmers out of their business. Saying there's nothing wrong with SA agriculture is preposterous. While the world demand grew several times over this period, SA went nowhere.

I also believe another factor you've forgotten is that SA in the 90's was really in a state of transition, for Brazil to become an agricultural superpower took decades of reform or at least two decades. Nobody was concerned about economic reform (other than macroeconomic) in SA in the 90's, while in Brazil and all these other countries were working hard at improving themselves, same thing with the internet, SA was completely pre-occupied with reconcilliation to notice the internet revolution, it's only now that we waking up.

Out of a 200 year history as an independent, democratic republic, it's only now that Brazil is truly thriving...Honestly give SA time, was Brazil this succesful after 17 years after it became a democratic republic? Brazil
Lastly I don't think SA's competitive advantage is agriculture, it's mining, we too dry a land to match Brazil...

Diggerdog

February 9th, 2012, 02:28 AM

Annman, yes, that is about right.
Some areas are struggling, some aren't. Yes, we could and should be doing better.

@Yuri - you are pushing your agenda and not bothering to understand the responses here.

I said you have a limited view because you insist on only mentioning GRAIN exports, and once again, you put the GRAIN export figures in BOLD in your very next post!
Do you understand that grain is not the only product you can farm - because it doesn't sound like it...

You are using the grain tonnages to illustrate that the whole sector is in trouble in SA, that it is in a worse state than in '94.

As an example, I showed you that Fruit and Wine (two or our BIGGEST export earners in the sector) - have performed very well in the last 10 years, and in fact viticulture in particular is absolutely world class compared to before '94.
The reason this is relevant is because viticulture is a very big employer and extremely lucrative - never mind elitist - it is very important.

So, to recap, do you agree that whilst some areas of agriculture have stagnated since the 90's, other areas have improved?

annman

February 9th, 2012, 01:42 PM

^^ Elitism is NOT a factor in agriculture. I live on a wine estate and the farming side of it is messy. Plus, who freekin' cares what agricultural sector is perceived as elitist or is heavily romanticised or not... A sector which creates jobs and earns foreign revenue is frankly, good enough for anyone.

Yuri S Andrade

February 9th, 2012, 08:11 PM

We have to keep things in perspective here. Brazil is a huge country, over 5 times that of SA with huge water resources and arable land. SA is mostly semi-arid, many parts are water scarce with poor soils and limited use other than for livestock farming.

Is the SA government very supportive of commercial farming... definitely not. Policy rhetoric has been very anti-commercial farming in the ruling party's radical grouping for a good number of years now.

Is SA's agricultural industry in crisis as a whole, NO. Is the agricultural community under siege in certain northern parts of South Africa, YES. Is government taking it seriously, not enough... it's treated as a normal crime and not as a syndicated issue (which with current mortality rates, it may well be).

Is food production in crisis, not yet... as smaller farmers leave, larger farmers simply buy that land and continue farming on a larger scale.

Can SA be doing better in agriculture? Yes it certainly can. Do we need policy clarity and direction on rural land from government? Definitely. Is agriculture doomed, as we speak? Not now and not yet.

And... bombshell... The Rand is actually at its correct level. It was overvalued in 2010 R6.50-US$1. The R7-$1 and R8-$1 range is about on target.

We cannot assume Brazil is bigger and therefore SA farming production must decrease. Brazilian well-settled areas (Paraná state, 6 times smaller than SA) more than doubled the production and that's despite government and infrastructure, not because of them. South Africa couldn't do anything, but double its production from 1994's. Instead, watch it to decrease.

What happened there is unacceptable. Brazilian government neglets agriculture. What South African government did was criminal. A country with so many social problems couldn't actively destroy an industry producing (could produce) tens of billions of dollars every year.

Please, let's understand the absurdity of the situation: 3,000 people murdered out of 110,000. 70,000 terrorized. And like I said: the matter is not the food production, but the tens of billions of dollars SA could do every year, money on the hands of hundreds of thousands in the poorest areas of the country. Universities, research, retail, industry, all that comes from the farming.

PS. Be careful using terms like Transvaal and Orange. Those places were old Boer-Republics and Apartheid era provinces and no longer exist. For the sake of not getting feathers ruffled for no reason other than semantics, rather say "Northern Provinces," or pick them out province by province:

Limpopo (LP); Mpumalanga (MP); Gauteng (GP); North West (NW); Free State (FS); KwaZulu-Natal (KZN); Northern Cape (NC); Eastern Cape (EC); Western Cape (WC)

Well, I like the older names better. It's only a matter of preference. Do I prefer today's SA or the former one? Of course today's. But I think the name changing is totally unnecessary and lots of problems in today's SA is due this kind of confrontation and racist policies.

I fail to see how can anyone be offended by a geographical name (people should be offended by the 3,000 SA farmers murdered) and I will keep using them. They are beautiful, original, historical and ideology-free.

@Yuri - you are pushing your agenda and not bothering to understand the responses here.

I said you have a limited view because you insist on only mentioning GRAIN exports, and once again, you put the GRAIN export figures in BOLD in your very next post!
Do you understand that grain is not the only product you can farm - because it doesn't sound like it...

You are using the grain tonnages to illustrate that the whole sector is in trouble in SA, that it is in a worse state than in '94.

As an example, I showed you that Fruit and Wine (two or our BIGGEST export earners in the sector) - have performed very well in the last 10 years, and in fact viticulture in particular is absolutely world class compared to before '94.
The reason this is relevant is because viticulture is a very big employer and extremely lucrative - never mind elitist - it is very important.

So, to recap, do you agree that whilst some areas of agriculture have stagnated since the 90's, other areas have improved?

You are not understanding: the figures is not from grains exports, but from the total of agricultural exports. SA did terrible in the grain production (the first figure I posted) and even worse in agricultural exports (total, including your fruits and wines). In 1994, SA might have exported more than Brazil. In 2010, Brazilian exports are 12 times as larger. For 2011, the official figures are to be released, but it will be over 90 billion dollars.

The fact of fruits and wine production has increased in the past years make things look even worse. It shows SA grain production really collapsed, despite all the advantages: infrastructure, know-how, favourable rand and the unbelievable growth of international demand.

And yes, viticulture is elitist and it's on the best part of South Africa. We can't compare Klerksdorp with Stellenbosch. South Africa wine region looks better than France or Italy. Looks like heaven. Big money there is a detail, whereas in the hinterland of Transvaal could operate miracles. In any case, I fail to understand why we need to choose between a booming viticulture and a big and growing grain production. I'd pick both.

I also believe another factor you've forgotten is that SA in the 90's was really in a state of transition, for Brazil to become an agricultural superpower took decades of reform or at least two decades. Nobody was concerned about economic reform (other than macroeconomic) in SA in the 90's, while in Brazil and all these other countries were working hard at improving themselves, same thing with the internet, SA was completely pre-occupied with reconcilliation to notice the internet revolution, it's only now that we waking up.

Out of a 200 year history as an independent, democratic republic, it's only now that Brazil is truly thriving...Honestly give SA time, was Brazil this succesful after 17 years after it became a democratic republic? Brazil
Lastly I don't think SA's competitive advantage is agriculture, it's mining, we too dry a land to match Brazil...

I don't agree with this kind of political analysis. Brazil is not thriving now, despite all the late positive propaganda. In the 1930's, for example, about 12% of Brazilian population was born in Europe, much more counting the children of immigrans. They were people looking a better life here. So, it's not like Brazil is on its momentum. We had several throughout history. Brazil still has HUGE problems and yet managed to increase dramatically its farming production. If I post a GE image of Brazilian number 1 port in terms of farming exports, you'll laugh out loud.

And precisely because South Africa is struggling, the country could not afford to lose hundreds of billions of dollars since 1994. If I, an ignorant foreigner, know this how can possibly SA officials not take this into account?

Is South Africa all about mining? For sure. But the country could perfectly do both (as it did in the past) mining and farming, not least because farming is way more democratic when it comes to money: hundreds of thousands of people living in Klerksdorp, Witbank, Nelspruit, Pietersburg, not on a dozen of tycoons living in Johannesburg or London.

^^ Elitism is NOT a factor in agriculture. I live on a wine estate and the farming side of it is messy. Plus, who freekin' cares what agricultural sector is perceived as elitist or is heavily romanticised or not... A sector which creates jobs and earns foreign revenue is frankly, good enough for anyone.

I totally agree. But it's a fact Klerksdorp needs more than Stellenbosch. And I said previously, SA could do both.

rubbercenter

February 11th, 2012, 05:18 PM

I've been looking into buying a small piece of land somewhere in the bundus...somewhere where i can plant a few veggies and have a few cows/sheep mowing the lawn. When you start looking at much of the land that's available for sale, it seems to be farmers slicing up larger farms and selling them off as 'lifestyle' farms. If this is the start of a trend, it might lead to shortages in land that's available for actual large scale farming purposes. Considering that SA's population will only keep increasing, we need to be very careful of running out of suitable land for farming.

On a side note...Saudi Arabia (and much of the GCC) is growing at such a rapid rate domestically that their local demand will outstrip their international available supply of oil. This will rob them of much needed international capital. If South Africa doesn't watch out, we'll be needing all our locally produced food for local consumption and cut off a crutial money stream.

rubbercenter

February 13th, 2012, 10:13 AM

and just to add to the discussion...

http://issuu.com/futurechallenges/docs/wp19hall01082011

interesting reading about the exodus of farming skills out of SA...

Diggerdog

March 7th, 2012, 12:14 AM

Informative article on the South African wine industry at the moment, from the Canadian National Post...

South Africa ten years later: My voyage back to the future
WineAlign Feb 28, 2012 – 7:02 PM ET

Comments Email Twitter inShare7By Janet Dorozynski

I was recently in South Africa, tasting, visiting wineries, as well as drinking a fair bit of wine, after not having been back for a decade. I was fortunate to have spent the better part of my year in 2000, living in South Africa and working for Wines of South Africa (WOSA) in Stellenbosch but had not been back since.

As a result of my time in South Africa, as well as several previous visits, I have always had a strong, inexplicably visceral attachment to all things South African. Even though I’ve been working with the Canadian wine industry since my return to Canada, through judging, reviewing and teaching, I have closely followed the wines and industry progress over the past decade.

I am delighted to have an opportunity to provide an update on several facets of the South African wine scene: New Wineries and New Investment, New Grapes and New Wines, New Regions, New Initiatives for a New Industry, and The Shift from Grape Farming to Wine Growing.

An Overview of the Progress

South Africa’s winelands are widely acknowledged as the most stunning in the world, surrounded by two oceans, crisscrossed by dramatic mountain ranges and valleys and dotted with picturesque, centuries-old wine farms. I was working in the country ten years after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and able to have an insider’s look at the players and an industry that had been undergoing profound and rapid changes. This allowed me to become very familiar with many of the great wines and producers that never did, and still never do, make their way to Canada. (Some of those that do are linked to WineAlign reviews below.)

It was fascinating to see how much had changed since I left in late December 2000, from the structure and growth of the industry, to the changes in pricing, style and quality of wines produced. As well, I was able to meet new producers and catch up with familiar faces from the past. Just before I arrived in 2000, wine exporters had transitioned from a voluntary, membership-based industry association to an inclusive model, which represents all exporters and is funded through a statutory levy on table and sparkling wines exports. Though not without challenges and detractors, this model has been a positive change for the industry and South African wine exports in general, making it possible for all exporters, under the helm of Su Birch, the dynamic CEO of WOSA, to work collaboratively on innovative international initiatives to advance exports in a few key markets over the past decade.

With the end of Apartheid and the international boycott on South African wines in the 1990s, winemakers and the industry were anxious to re-connect with the international arena and catch up after a period of economic isolation. South African wine exports represented 26% of total wine production in 2000 and almost doubled to 48.5% in 2010. Along with the move back into traditional export markets of the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, the new millennium saw the expansion to markets in Japan, Scandinavia, the USA and Canada. More recently, South African wines are being sold in new and emerging markets such as Russia, Asia, in particular China, and in other countries within the African continent.

South African wine exports to Canada have increased five-fold since 2000 (1.5 million liters in 2000 compared to 7.5 in 2011), however the selection seems to come in waves, going from periods dominated by high-volume, value-priced wines to times dotted with more listings of lesser-known, higher quality wines from smaller, quality-driven producers.

So what has changed since I was last in South Africa in 2000?

New Wineries, New Investment

There were just under 400 wine farms in 2000 and this number has grown to 573 in 2010. Then as now, the industry has a significant concentration of big wineries, brand owners and cooperatives, which has altered somewhat through a series of mergers, acquisitions and consolidation. The KWV (Cathedral Cellars, Café Culture Pinotage and Roodeberg), the former cooperative that once regulated production quotas and pricing for the industry), no longer holds the power and prominence it once had. However, along with Distell (Obikwa, Drostdy-Hof, Two Oceans, Stellenzicht, Durbanville Hills, Fleur du Cap) and Douglas Green Bellingham (Boschendal, The Beachhouse and others), these companies make up between a quarter and third of all South African wine exports. Smaller producers (60,000 cases or less) remain an important force in the industry and account for approximately 46% of the country’s production.

Looking back at some of the wineries I visited recently, Tokara had just finished construction in late 2000 but had yet to produce any wine, Waterkloof did not even exist and Delaire Graff was simply Delaire, producing some good wine under Bruwer Ratts (who now produces under his own label) in a spectacular location.

Delaire Graff

Following a forty million pound renovation by English diamond magnet Laurence Graff, Delaire Graff is a must see and stay destination for wine tourists who crave luxury and pampering. The Estate has two top restaurants, a clothing boutique and Graff diamond shop on the premises, as well as well-appointed guest cottages and a spa, which were listed by Conde Nast Traveller and Travel and Leisure Magazine as among the best new hotels in the world. The focus is on Bordeaux varieties with winemaker Morne Very making a powerful yet elegant Bordeaux Blend with Shiraz called Botmaskop (the nearby mountain peak which he has climbed), as well as rich Chardonnay, minerally Sauvignon Blanc and a layered, complex Cape Vintage fortified wine from traditional Portuguese grape varieties.

Tokara

Tokara Estate is the neighbor to well-known Thelema and located on the crest of the dramatic Helshoogte pass between Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. A state of the art wine making facility, olive farm and restaurant, winemaking is overseen by Miles Mossop, who was just starting out in 2000 and one of South Africa’s new generation of winemakers. Although the wine production facility was completed at the end of the 2000, the premium range Tokara labels were not released until 2006. The fruit is sourced from vineyards on the estate, as well as properties owned in cooler Hemel-en-Arde and Elgin.

The Tokara Director’s Reserve White is among the Cape’s finest white blends, the 2010 being an exquisite blend of 70% Sauvignon Blanc (unoaked) and 30% Sémillon (aged in French oak) that is stylistically similar to a fine white Bordeaux. There is also an impressive Director’s Reserve Red that blends ripe, New World fruit with Old World structure and elegance. I also tasted the 2009 Shiraz, containing 12% Mourvedre and well put together, which could benefit from a few years in the cellar. See here for notes on the 2007 Zondernamm Shiraz and Tokara 2007 White.

Waterkloof Wines

One of the newest wineries to open in the Cape is Waterkloof Wines, situated in the Helderberg sub-region of the Stellenbosch District. The winery and vineyards are mere kilometers from False Bay, which is one of South Africa’s cooler growing areas. UK wine importer Paul Boutinot is the owner, or custodian as he calls himself, who has invested in South Africa with a commitment to produce sustainable, fine wines. Werner Engelbrecht is the accomplished viticulturalist and winemaker, who practices sustainable and biodynamic farming practices. The winery building is modern and simple, perched high atop Schapenberg Hill, with spectacular views of False Bay from the tasting room and restaurant.

Waterkloof is represented by Family Wine Merchants in Ontario and the winery produces several tiers of wine. The False Bay series contains very good value and well-made red, white and rose while the Waterkloof range includes the Circle of Life 2010 White, a complex, textured blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 35% Chenin Blanc and 5% Semillon to be released in July 2012. Other outstanding wines include the racy and concentrated Waterkloof 2009 Sauvignon Blanc as well as the Circle of Life 2009 Red, a full-bodied, refined blend of Merlot, Shiraz, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Like well-made South African red blends, it combines purity and richness of fruit, fine-grained tannins and real finesse.

Other South African wineries that were barely in existence in 2000, but worth seeking out, include Sadie Family Wines, Ataraxia, Mullineux and Badenhorst, some of whose wines we see in Canada.

New Grapes, New Wines

Over the past decade, the industry has latched on to fads and gone through phases, similar to all New World regions in search of renovation or reinvention. South Africa wineries have experimented with critter labels, focused on Sauvignon Blanc for whites, and most recently, with Pinotage (a native South African crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsault) as “coffee” wine, which seems to have captured the imagination of Canadians, and those in other export markets, in a way that Pinotage alone was never able to.

The fascination with single varietal Cabernet Sauvignon wines was starting to wind down a decade ago, while the interest for all things Shiraz/ Syrah was heating up. Very good producers include Boekenhoutskloof, Mullineux and Spice Route. Plantings of Shiraz/Syrah have increased from 6% to 10% of total vineyard area in the last ten years, although Cabernet Sauvignon also increased from to 9% to 12%. Both are currently the top red grapes and while you still see a fair amount of single varietal wines, there has been the shift to blends – Rhone blends, more Bordeaux blends, Syrah blended with Cabernet, or into Cape Blends, South Africa’s red blend containing a significant proportion of Pinotage. Some budget-priced red blends worth trying are Thelema Mountain Red, Boekenhoutskloof Wolftrap Red, and Post House Blueish Black.

While the share of white grape production had dropped from 64% to 56% by 2010, the whites I tasted were extremely impressive, perhaps overall better than the reds. Chenin Blanc and Columbar (used mainly for bulk or boxed wines) are the main grapes for white wines, followed by Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Recommended whites include: Ataraxia Chardonnay, Iona Chardonnay and Boekenhoutskloof Wolftrap White.

Chenin Blanc, known as Steen in South Africa, is believed to be one of the original grape varieties brought to the Cape colony in 1655 and is incredibly versatile for dry, sweet and sparkling wines and ages very well. Producers like Ken Forrester FMC and Petit Chenin have shown that South African Chenin is capable of producing luscious, crisp and concentrated wines that can rival the best of the Loire any day. Sadly, and despite the efforts of groups like the Chenin Blanc Association to increase the profile and instances of quality South African Chenin Blanc, plantings of Chenin have gone down the past decade, the slack being taken over by Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

New Regions

Just as Shiraz was beginning to make a name for itself a decade ago, the Swartland district was just starting to generate the buzz that is much louder today. This region reportedly clocks in some of the country’s hottest day time temperatures and is among South Africa’s driest growing area, with cool evenings and cooling breezes from the frigid Atlantic Ocean, making for ideal growing conditions. Historically home to Chenin Blanc and other commercially unfashionable grape varieties (i.e. not a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc here), the “Swartland Revolution” was a movement afoot over the past decade, led by Eden Sadie, among others, who “rediscovered” the region while making wine at Spice Route Wines in Malmesbury.

The exodus of winemakers like Sadie and Adi Badenhorst from Stellenbosch to Swartland was accompanied by an influx of newcomers like Mullineux and Lammershoek who share a commitment to winemaking and viticultural practices that respect and celebrate low yields, old bush vine vineyards, dry land farming, manipulation free wine making and a lighter use of oak. The Swartland Revolution, part manifesto and part marketing, is also an annual celebration that has taken place over the past two years, with the next event set for November 9-10, 2012. For more information of the event, the Revolution and winemakers check out The Swartland Revolution.

The search for cooler growing areas has also resulted in the creation of new regions and districts under the Wine of Origin (appellation) scheme. Elgin had started to be recognized as a cool growing area (literally and figuratively) and is home to Sauvignon Blanc producer Oak Bay. Other new areas that came into existence that we see from time to time on bottles include Bot River, Elin and Cape Point, home to the highly rated white blend (Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon) Islied from Cape Point Vineyards.

New Initiatives for a New Industry:

Wine has been made in South Africa for centuries (the first harvest dates back to 1659) and it is surely the world’s oldest New World wine region. The South African wine industry has also been inextricably linked to colonialism and apartheid, as well as the resulting socio-political conditions and their impact on some of the people who have worked in the industry. Although much of the abuse and poor working conditions historically existed on grape farms as opposed to wine estates, the aftermath on the rural communities of the Cape has been far reaching and long lasting on South Africa’s black workers.

While no other wine industry has had to account for its labour practices or living conditions of its workers, not to mention the distribution of land-ownership, wealth or power within their wine industries, the South African wine industry has acknowledged the history and risen to the challenge to redress past wrongs by investing in a series of comprehensive initiatives for black workers.

South Africa Wineland
Stemming from a government country-wide initiative called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), designed to promote economic growth, develop skills and create greater equality and opportunities for disadvantaged communities, the wine industry adopted a Wine Industry Transformation Charter in 2007. This plan, complete with scorecard and broad-based measures, recognizes the need for and implements increased training and education opportunities, ethical trading practices, preferential procurement, and the transition to ownership and management control, among others.

Still a work in progress with challenges ahead, the past fifteen years have resulted in noticeable changes in the number of black winemakers, black-owned wine ventures, a myriad of joint ventures, along with so named Black-owned Brands. Tukulu is an early venture between Distell, a group of black entrepreneurs and a community trust whose workers work and live on the farm. Many of these wines often find their way to export markets since it is easy to find shelf space and funding for export activities.

Other initiatives which came into existence over the past decade include programs and measures focused biodiversity and sustainability (mandated for all products exported). Sustainability measures had already been underway when I arrived in 2000, with independent sustainability certification for producers who minimize chemical use, protect biodiversity, clean up waste water and ensure people, as well as environmentally friendly practices. By 2011, 85% of wine labels will sport the Sustainability seal. Similarly, the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative is partnership between the wine industry and conservation sector to protect threatened wildlife habitat and contribute to sustainable wine production, so as to preserve the floral splendor of the Cape winelands.

The Shift from Grape Farming to Wine Growing

Overall, I would say that one of the biggest changes I saw was the improvement in the quality of the wines. The upgrading of vineyards, improvements in viticulture techniques, investment and retooling of wineries and the education of a new generation of winemakers, who travel and work outside the country, has begun to pay off in spades. Plant diseases, like leaf roll virus, which some say are responsible for off, burnt flavours in red wines, are now kept in check through elimination of water stress on the vines and earlier picking, as Boschendel winemaker Lizelle Gerber explained. Todays red wines are cleaner, more balanced and have less oak treatment than in the past.

South Africa Wineland
The most notable change in quality was in the white wines, with Chenin Blanc from Beaumont, the aromatic white blends from producers like Mullineux and Sauvignon Blanc from Waterkloof standing out, with fresh acidity and pure flavours and concentration, as more as more producers seek out cooler growing areas, higher elevation vineyards and learning more about optimal picking times. In essence, what has really been happening in South Africa over the past decade or two has been the shift from grape farming to wine growing, which has had a tremendous impact on quality and bodes well for the future.

We still don’t see many of the really interesting South African wines in Canada, with current offerings not reflective of the breadth and quality of wines produced in South Africa today. This is partly because producers have focused their efforts on the UK, a challenging market which nonetheless accounts for 30% of total exports, or on markets like the US, the Holy Grail for many South African producers. I recall hearing from a South African producer who had travelled to Canada in the fall of 2000 and remarked that there was “greater demand and interest in South African wines than the industry realized and a distinct level of boredom in the wines that were available and offered to buyers”. To some extent, this might explain what is still at work today and why South African wines have yet reach their potential in our market.

Posted in: Appetizer, Wine Tags: Janet Dorozynski, South Africa, wine

annman

April 4th, 2012, 04:32 PM

www.news24.com
Whose land is it anyway?

04 April 2012, 15:35

In 1957 the American folk singer Woodie Guthrie wrote a folk song called 'This land is your land'.
With apologies to Guthrie, a current-day version here in South Africa might read:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Polokwane, to Cape Aghulas Lighthouse
From the Gauteng maize farms, to the Swartland wheatfields
This land you made I'll take from you

Before you go all racist on me, I'll be the first to admit the Dutch and English swiped a ton of South African land from Africans. That part is indisputable.
The problem is if we dispense with the willing-buyer-willing-seller policy, no allowance is being made for the value added to the land. That’s why white farmers have started the second Great Trek, upping sticks to places like Mozambique and DRC. It’s also one of the main reasons for a massive decrease in land-productivity in SA.

If it can be proved that the current owner turned fallow bush into productive farmland, he has caused the land to appreciate in value. He should be compensated for that.

Farming isn't for sissies. Aside from the hard physical labour and long hours, it also takes money, equipment and know-how. Successful farms are a business like any other. They require insurance, maintenance and investment. Often bank loans are needed to overcome droughts, floods or other calamities. To make a decent living off a farm you need commercial scale equipment - tractors, ploughs, combine harvesters. Cattle need to be dipped. Sheep need to be sheared. Wheat and maize must be planted, irrigated and harvested.

So you can't simply walk in and say, 'Hey, this belonged to my ancestors. Your ancestors stole it from them and I want it back. Leave.'
On the basis of recent history, even with willing-buyer-willing-seller, over 80% of white-owned farmland in South Africa that has been returned to its ancestral owners is no longer productive. Mostly, this is because the new owners don't have the agricultural knowledge or financial collateral, or both, to maintain the farm in its productive state. Since democracy, we have actually moved from being a net exporter of grains to a net importer.

A better solution to this first problem would be a collaborative solution. The ancestral owners can be assisted by the current owner to cultivate either a portion of the farm, or land adjacent, as productive farmland. It is in the current owner's interests to empower the ancestral owners because he gets to keep his land, or a portion of it. It is in the ancestral owners' interests as they get to expand the farming operation and earn a good living as commercial farmers, while maintaining the productivity of the land. The two become co-dependent.

The second problem is the one raised recently in Parliament when the Deputy Minister of Agriculture pointed out that Africans had not migrated to the Cape when the Europeans arrived, so automatic claims of ancestral entitlement were invalid in this area. To which our State President responded with dire warnings and threats.

Deputy Mulder was about as diplomatic as Hitler on a bad hair day, but unpopular as it may be, he is correct, and it's all got to do with the Portuguese.

Any anthropologist will tell you that African agriculturalists, although they had established some settlements earlier, started migrating south in significant numbers around the fifteen hundreds. They farmed certain grains, tubers and cattle. As they moved, they displaced the khoi and san hunter-gatherer tribes. (More about them later).

As they moved to the East African coast, they came into contact with Portuguese traders. From them, they acquired something that would give them a strong foothold in the South: maize. It was far easier to cultivate and process than the cassava and yams that they'd lived off up north, and it was much higher in carbohydrates. For protein, they continued to depend on their main source of wealth: cattle. The combination of maize and cattle gave rise to larger settlements, villages and towns, and an establishment of community on a scale never before seen in this area. People settled the land. There was no such thing as land management because it wasn't necessary. Once cattle overgrazed an area, you simply moved them to another area. There was so much land, the affected area had plenty of time to recover.

Back to the khoi and san. As hunter-gatherers, they had survived in this region for thousands of years before the arrival of Africans by moving with migrating herds of wildlife - eland, wildebeest and so on. Whatever roamed the land was fair game to hunt. They had no concept of land settlement or that an animal could actually belong to someone. So when the Africans arrived with herds of cattle, the khoi and san couldn't believe their luck. Huge herds of slow moving beasts that were far easier to shoot than even the biggest eland, and with enough meat on them to feed the whole clan.
Naturally the Africans didn't share this point of view. They responded by ethnically cleansing the khoi and san from any land into which they moved.
By the sixteen hundreds when the Dutch were starting to settle in the Cape, Africans were thriving in what is now Zambia, Zimbabwe, and northern and eastern South Africa. So why did the Dutch not find any Africans in the Cape?

Maize.

Maize is a summer rainfall crop. It doesn't grow in winter rainfall areas. Like the Western Cape
.
That's why Africans didn't move south of the Fish River. They also didn't move west of what is now the Eastern Cape because of the Karoo (a semi-desert region covering most of the Northern Cape).

This allowed the Europeans to settle in the Western Cape unchallenged. They brought with them plenty of European crops that thrived in winter rainfall regions - mainly wheat and fruit, which was vital for the sailors using the Cape as a pit-stop to the East (the vitamin C in the fruit stopped them dying of scurvy, and the wheat provided bread rations for the ship's crew).
The Dutch also encountered the khoi and san. And they reacted in much the same way as the Africans - by killing them en masse. Or mating with them. Remember this was a time when slavery was still accepted as a totally normal aspect of European society. Khoi and San families became enslaved on the Dutch farms, and many of their women ended up being bedded by their masters (slaves had no rights and were simply the possessions of their owners). The resulting offspring became the early ancestors of what we now call the coloured or mixed-race communities of the Western Cape.

The next big wave of immigrants to arrive were the French Huguenots. By the end of the 17th century, roughly 200,000 Huguenots had been driven from Catholic France during a series of religious persecutions against protestants. They mostly fled to the Americas and to South Africa. Until then, the Dutch had been pottering around with wine, but the Huguenots were the ones who really established viticulture in the Cape.

The Dutch must have been a bit piqued by this one-upmanship by the French, because they responded by systematically destroying French culture in the Cape. Huguenot settlers were forbidden to speak French and forced to speak Dutch. That's why we have Franchoek (French Corner) in the Cape, where many of the wine farms still carry their original French names: La Motte, La Cotte, Cabriere, Provence, Chamonix, Dieu Donne and La Dauphine. It's also why so many Afrikaners still have French surnames - Du Toit, Du Plessis, Labuschagne and Pienaar (from the French Pinard).

Things went swimmingly in the Cape for the next two hundred years or so until the next big influx of Europeans - the English. By 1806 the English had become the new occupiers of the Western Cape, and not a few Dutch were pretty gatvol (pissed off) with their new rooinek (redneck) bosses - especially their decision to abolish slavery, so they upped sticks and moved north in a migration remembered as the Groot Trek (the Big Move), between the 1830s and 1840s.

This is when the kak (shit) really hit the fan. Two cultures, both agriculturalists, both farming grains and cattle. One growing ever more populous in the north, the other moving with their grains and cows slap bang into the same area. Recipe for disaster. To make matters worse, the English tried to counter this northern colonisation by the Dutch by enticing hundreds of English Settlers with promises of free land and untold riches.

So the 1820 Settlers arrived in the Eastern Cape and Natal. Just what you need when a new military genius in the region, Shaka, son of Senzagakona, was starting to establish one of the greatest military empires in the south - the mighty Zulu. From there on it got messy. Isandlwana notwithstanding, the English stole most of Natal from the Zulu and the Eastern Cape from the Xhosa, while the Dutch established their Oranje and Transvaal republics further north, taking land from Moshoeshoe until all he had left is what is now the enclave kingdom of Lesotho, and forcing another military general, Cetshwayo, further and further back until he was deprived of everything, except the current small nation of Swaziland.

After the Brits defeated the Boers in the two Anglo Boer Wars (1880 - 1881 and 1899 - 1902), the Union of South Africa remained a Commonwealth realm of the crown until 1960, when the Nationalist Government under H F Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to 18, and had also included the white voters of South West Africa, now Namibia, on the electoral roll. Afrikaners, who were more likely to favour a republic than English-speaking white South Africans, were also on average younger than them, with a higher birth rate. Similarly in South West Africa, the Afrikaners and German-speaking whites outnumbered English-speaking members. The referendum was won by the Nats 52.3% to 47.7% and we became a republic on 5 Oct 1960. South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth after becoming a democracy in 1994.

Three hundred years later, President Zuma (a Zulu) is conveniently forgetting that his ancestors' lands did not extend to the Cape. This is a convenient amnesia because the Cape is becoming increasingly prized. After Johannesburg, it's the next biggest economic hub in the country.

And frustratingly for Zuma and the ANC, it does not belong to them. Western Cape voters don't vote with the same knee-jerk obedience to the ANC as their more northern cousins. They don't feel the same allegiance and therefore voted another party into power to lead the Western Cape. This, the ANC has never lived down. They take it as a personal affront that they do not 'own' the Western Cape, with one of their spokespeople infamously saying that there was an "oversupply" of coloureds in the Western Cape. Does he mean to forcibly re-locate them, as his former oppressors used to do during apartheid?

If the Western Cape should be returned to anybody, it should be to the coloureds, the mixed race descendants of the khoi and san who both Africans and Whites so systematically wiped off the face of the sub-continent.

But somehow I can't see President Zuma jumping at that option...

Yuri S Andrade

April 6th, 2012, 03:22 AM

^^
Very very interesting article. That's what I have been saying here: the current South African policies are criminous. They're destroying the ability of South African farming industry to produce money, big money.
Meanwhile, Brazil farming industry exported in 2011 90 billion dollars. South Africa, negligible 6 billion. And that's with an overvalued real and an undervalued rand. I don't have info for 1994, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn South Africa exported more than Brazil back then.

Kwazimoto

April 6th, 2012, 08:18 PM

Black people in this country are just trying to make a living. To have more than just "democrary" to celebrate for living in this country, and for as long as you (whites, yes I said it) don't appreciate this fact we will never truly see eye to eye.

A large number of people are killed in this country every day (50) the majority of whom are black, by people whose lives have become so desperate, nothing, not even life imprisonment can be better than "sitting and doing nothing". And you want to protect farmers as though their plight is worse than the many people in townships being slaughtered daily! (stinks of a superiority complex)

The government is effectively being held ransom- keep the status quo, or we walk out. let the minority white population keep their farms or they take their skills to else where. were not interested in passing on our skills.

We would rather see the country of our birth have food shortages and people die of hunger than ever work with the blacks. Because they are trying to Rob me of the land I've worked so hard (land of course, which was stolen in the first place, but never mind).

Life is extremely tough for black south Africans, and that's what you don't get (or rather, don't care about). The excessive wealth in the white community and the desperate state of life of many blacks in this country is a spit in the face of our hard won democracy.

It will be a sad day when we see all white farmers ply Their expertise in other countries. But it will be an even sadder day when 10-20years form today we are still largely in the same situation. Because that would mean the blacks in this country did not master the bravery to lead their own destinies, and learn on the job how to farm.

So while some of you may see racist policies. The majority of our people, and indeed all those who know true justice, will see fairness in what the anc is doing.

I am not worried about producing more food than brazil (any sane person would not be). And I am also not As worried about food security as I am about the economic emancipation (financially well of people can get food in a drought) of our people, that is the biggest crime of south africa's democracy.

Kwazimoto

April 6th, 2012, 08:24 PM

Black people in this country are just trying to make a living. To have more than just "democrary" to celebrate for living in this country, and for as long as you (whites, yes I said it) don't appreciate this fact we will never truly see eye to eye.

A large number of people are killed in this country every day (50) the majority of whom are black, by people whose lives have become so desperate, nothing, not even life imprisonment can be better than "sitting and doing nothing". And you want to protect farmers as though their plight is worse than the many people in townships being slaughtered daily! (stinks of a superiority complex)

The government is effectively being held ransom- keep the status quo, or we walk out. let the minority white population keep their farms or they take their skills to else where. were not interested in passing on our skills.

We would rather see the country of our birth have food shortages and people die of hunger than ever work with the blacks. Because they are trying to Rob me of the land I've worked so hard (land of course, which was stolen in the first place, but never mind).

Life is extremely tough for black south Africans, and that's what you don't get (or rather, don't care about). The excessive wealth in the white community and the desperate state of life of many blacks in this country is a spit in the face of our hard won democracy.

It will be a sad day when we see all white farmers ply Their expertise in other countries. But it will be an even sadder day when 10-20years form today we are still largely in the same situation. Because that would mean the blacks in this country did not master the bravery to lead their own destinies, and learn on the job how to farm.

So while some of you may see racist policies. The majority of our people, and indeed all those who know true justice, will see fairness in what the anc is doing.

I am not worried about producing more food than brazil (any sane person would not be). And I am also not As worried about food security as I am about the economic emancipation (financially well of people can get food in a drought) of our people, that is the biggest crime of south africa's democracy.

gregbb

April 7th, 2012, 01:41 AM

Black people in this country are just trying to make a living. To have more than just "democrary" to celebrate for living in this country, and for as long as you (whites, yes I said it) don't appreciate this fact we will never truly see eye to eye.

Most people in most countries are just trying to make a living no race needed!!!

A large number of people are killed in this country every day (50) the majority of whom are black, by people whose lives have become so desperate, nothing, not even life imprisonment can be better than "sitting and doing nothing". And you want to protect farmers as though their plight is worse than the many people in townships being slaughtered daily! (stinks of a superiority complex)Demographics, but any death should be unacceptable, maybe labor laws need to help the unemployed to get them some income.
Most labor intensive industries in the USA have moved from Northern union states to Southern non-unionized states as it is cheaper to do business and they have less issues with unproductive workers, if you are not fulfilling their requirements you can get fired but can still file unfair dismissal if warranted., ie no work no pay states.

To the issue:
All farmers need security as much as any business.
No single person is warranted to die but one that employes 100's for obvious reasons is valued at more than 1 that doesn't work from an economics point of view.
Not sure why you need to think nobody cares about township deaths all deaths need to be condemned.
If violent crime becomes a problem then maybe the death penalty should be re-introduced, sounds tough but an eye for an eye..

.

The government is effectively being held ransom- keep the status quo, or we walk out. let the minority white population keep their farms or they take their skills to else where. were not interested in passing on our skills.Very short sighted,
Most countries are held ransom to a degree by big business, but the successful countries make plans to keep the skilled there.
Will Boeing pass on their skills to others? I think not!!!
Remember an issue in 70's 80's not sure but think it was bananas from a Caribbean island that supplied England, basically a USA company lobbied enough to impose increased import taxes on certain items to help the US producer of bananas. So look at global agriculture issues not just local as all are relevent.

We would rather see the country of our birth have food shortages and people die of hunger than ever work with the blacks. Because they are trying to Rob me of the land I've worked so hard (land of course, which was stolen in the first place, but never mind). Wow again very very short sighted. Nobody should wish for there freinds, family and neighbors to be hungry to almost death and in some cases even death, seems you no better than those who wished death on others in the oppression years!!!! Its also my country of birth and i don't wish that on any culture.

Life is extremely tough for black south Africans, and that's what you don't get (or rather, don't care about). The excessive wealth in the white community and the desperate state of life of many blacks in this country is a spit in the face of our hard won democracy. I agree life is tough for most Blacks, but i don't think its a spit in the face as the only way its a spit in the face is if you think democracy is there to give you what you want. If you work for what you want like in the rest of the world then its certainly no spit in the face.
Yes its coming ...sure you didn't have any opportunity's ( i presume based on your venom). One only way to overcome it is education for the new generation, the older generation i agree they need help but that's where government should step up.
Looks like they not really stepping up to help either the older generation or the younger!
I'm in the USA so say i come back am i an excessive white wealthy colonialist or just a South African?

It will be a sad day when we see all white farmers ply Their expertise in other countries. But it will be an even sadder day when 10-20years form today we are still largely in the same situation. Because that would mean the blacks in this country did not master the bravery to lead their own destinies, and learn on the job how to farm. It will be a sad day to see no non-whites come though the agricultural colleges / universities actually. How many Non-whites got into Elsenburg this year? and on Elsenburg's standards not government dropping standards?
But agree its up to them to master the change.
The only reason any Farmer will leave is based on security and profitability..its a business not a commodity.

So while some of you may see racist policies. The majority of our people, and indeed all those who know true justice, will see fairness in what the anc is doing.On certain issues i agree but this is a farming issue so no i disagree.
Answer these then we can discuss again.
Number of non-whites that graduated in agriculture in last 5-10 years.
Number of non-whites that did Agriculture exchange programs with other countries? - we employed 4 South Africans a year in USA from 1994-2004 and never had a non-white apply although it was through a university program and we couldn't choose only based on skill. All were prior to choosing a collage or university in SA so were 18-21 (If you need help getting non-white on programs in USA i can send you info) Not there anymore so don't know till now.

Nobody i think can give true justice but they can give fair justice and help those to transfer skills but it does work both ways , those that want skills need first choice not those that just want it to get shot up the ladder based on the past.

All the above doesn't include the land reform issues, as that is a different issue.

I am not worried about producing more food than brazil (any sane person would not be). And I am also not As worried about food security as I am about the economic emancipation (financially well of people can get food in a drought) of our people, that is the biggest crime of south africa's democracy.Agree no need for who produces what.

BTW Ive worked with several different cultures in agriculture, Xhosa, Zulu, Khoikhoi(colored), Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban, Honduran, El Salvadorian and Nicaraguan and all are similar at the end of the day we are all running farms for the benefit of food security. Your point of WE NEED this and that is irrelevant as" WE as a country NEED more than what you need". To want to hurt your own is akin to murder, get a life, rather help them go to school and collage to improve food security.

gregbb

April 7th, 2012, 01:57 AM

The point of the above comment..

I'm a Farmer i don't have land, i chose my opportunities based on education to get ahead. Most large farms need someone to run them so its not about land to me (although i lost my family farm) but its what you do next that counts.

Keep it about what you do with it not what you what as there are many of the likes of me that don't have land but love the land....

annman

April 7th, 2012, 09:02 AM

^^ The land issue is a ruse, a con played upon the majority of the country to hide the other governmental failures. Yes, land redress is desperately needed, however, has the government had ANY success in this regard... NO! The Dept. of Land Affairs and the Dept. of Rural Development and Land Restitution are utter failures. They blame the farmers for a failed willing-seller-willing-buyer system, yet 90% of all farms they buy turn into unproductive failures. That's not the previous commercial farmer's fault, that's government's fault.

Blaming the cow for bad milk when you buy milk from a grocer that refuses to turn on the fridge! That's the masses blaming the farmer for government's land redress failures. There are PLENTY of farmers who are going under that would willingly sell to the government at a fair price. Government: we can't buy land; same year: R30billion misappropriated and stolen. Tell as another lie why don't you, ANC!

The land issue is a ruse: Most aspiring African children don't want land, they want careers! How disgusting to belittle African youth in such a way, as to think all they want is a patch of maize and a few cows. That's utter CRAP! Land is a tiny issue in a greater sea of colossal post-liberation f**k ups.

Land is not the issue, the issue is a failed system of education, governance and economic policy that keeps people unemployed and careerless. But, that's how the ANC works, keep the masses feeling entitled, so the ANC is seen as the savior and "giving" to the masses, rather than empowering the masses to make them self-sufficient, because then, the masses won't need the ANC anymore. Keep the followers in servitude to stay in power.

Land made people rich in the 1900's, financial institutions, investments and businesses make people rich in the 2000's.

PS. I cross posted that article, I did not write it, so don't rebuttal me directly as if I did.

Kwazimoto

April 7th, 2012, 11:45 AM

annman

April 7th, 2012, 03:32 PM

Seems way too much is being extrapolated and assumed.

SUNS 25

April 7th, 2012, 03:56 PM

hummmm, The discussions here are very animated.:)

annman

April 7th, 2012, 04:08 PM

^^ Just have no bloody clue where all those assumptions came from, like it wasn't even a reply to me, but some parallel universe, evil, ultra Right-Wing version of me???!!! :ohno:

Yuri S Andrade

April 7th, 2012, 11:49 PM

It's a shame South Africa society still allows people display such crude racism as Kwazimoto did in his post. So, basically you rather be poor than have whites (your fellow countrymen) around? What a beautiful thought!

I didn't read the other replies yet, but in short, I fail to see how Black South Africans would be harmed if the country exported 20, 30 billion dollars in farming products instead of this ridiculous 6 billions.

Nostra

April 8th, 2012, 09:52 PM

Freedom of speech buddy, get used to it...

Yuri S Andrade

April 8th, 2012, 10:54 PM

^^
I was not talking about a legal ban, but a social. But keep on hating, I don't care. I must warn, however, hating might cause cancer. :yes:

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 12:00 AM

Farm income rises in 2011, but so does expenditure
09:30 (GMT+2), Sun, 01 April 2012
By Robyn Joubert

Farming income for 2011 grew in line with the expectations of industry experts, although record high prices paid for some crops were offset by increases in expenditure.

Gross farming income from all agricultural products rose 11,5% to an estimated R144,6 billion for the year ended 31 December 2011, compared with the previous year. This is according to the 2011 Economic Review of SA Agriculture. The review was compiled by the directorate for statistics and economic analysis at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) using questionnaires sent out to various stakeholders.

The sector that registered the highest increase in gross income was field crops (29,8% higher to R35,8 billion), while animal products increased by 8,1% to R71,8 billion and horticultural products rose by 3,4% to R37 billion. “The DAFF report is much in line with what we expected,” said Dr Ferdi Meyer, director for the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy.

“The main reason for the growth in farm income is much higher crop prices, mainly driven by higher world prices, and local red meat prices, which surged on the back of reduced supplies. The world price for sugar reached a record high and local prices were high too.”

Prices received by farmers for agricultural products increased on average by 12,4%. However, this was offset by an increase in expenditure. On intermediate goods and services, expenditure increased billion. Expenditure on dips and sprays rose by 19%, on 13% to R84,8 seeds and plants by 18%, and on packing material by 17,2%. Maintenance and repairs went up by 16,8%, farm services by 15,2%, building and fencing material by 9,4%, fertilisers by 9%, farm feeds by 8,2%, and fuel by 6,1%.

Spending on farm feeds remained the biggest item, accounting for 22% of total expenditure, followed by fuel (13,8%), farm services (12,9%), maintenance and repairs (11%), seeds and plants (8,9%), dips and sprays (8,3%), packing material (7,0%), and fertilisers (6,9%).

Professor Nick Vink, chair of Stellenbosch University’s department of agricultural economics, said increased expenses meant that higher farm income would not necessarily translate into higher profitability. “The only way farmers can increase profits in this scenario is to increase volumes, which is difficult because it is weather-dependent, or to decrease inputs. For this, good management is needed,” said Vink.

Total farming debt at the end of December 2011 was estimated at R79,4 billion, an increase of 13,4%, while debt as a percentage of assets also increased, according to the DAFF review. “One always worries about the ability to service debt but it is at a fairly healthy ratio. It’s evidence there is more investment in agriculture, which is a healthy sign. “Without investment, there can be no growth,” said Vink.

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/news.aspx?id=16788&h=Farm income rises in 2011, but so does expenditure

not export though.

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:00 AM

Future Farmers Foundation – Working Together for Agricultural Excellence

Future Farmers Foundation selects young school leavers who are passionate about agriculture and trains them to become top commercial farm managers and farmers in their own right. The system is an apprenticeship system. The apprentices start at the bottom and gradually work their way up as they learn new skills. At the end of two years they are expected to have a working knowledge of all of the operations on the farm, including record keeping and labour management. Throughout this period of time they have access to a mentor who gives them whatever support they may need.This may be in the form of encouragement and advice, or it may involve assisting them to resolve problems with their employer or other employees on the farms.
After two years, if the apprentices have performed well, they are given an opportunity to complete a one year’s internship overseas. Our sponsors (Saville Foundation and the Underberg Farmers’ Association), fund this overseas travel. However, the interns repay the money to the sponsors from their substantial earnings, whilst they are working overseas. As this money is repaid, it becomes available to send the next intern.
The apprentices achieve incredible results, and they do it on their own! It is Future Farmers Foundation’s goal to ensure that these lads have dignity and a great sense of responsibility. They take responsibility for those that follow behind them as well as themselves.
After the overseas internship, the lads are encouraged to start to study through UNISA. At this time, most of them are mature and disciplined and understand the need for a good work ethic. The courses recommended are agribusiness and economics.They learn farming on the farms.
In February 2012, Judy Stuart will start a course of lectures in theory, to support the practical skills being learnt on the farms. She has started approaching industries to ask them to provide the lecturers. It will be in the interests of these industries to do so and to become involved in such a project.
At present Future Farmers Foundation have four farmers who wish to take on these young lads as partners. In each case, the farmer has reached this decision on his own and it is based on trust. He has worked with one of the lads for a period of time and has that much confidence in him, that he is prepared to offer him a partnership in his business.
Every farmer has a different proposal. In one case, the farmer is offering a 50% partnership to one a lad. In another case, the farmer wants to retain a 35% share in the farm, with 35% going to his manager (another of Future Farmers Foundation’s lads) and 30% to a workers’ trust. Another farmer wants to build a milk processing plant with a partner. Every case is different. The important thing is that these young men are partnered with an experienced and successful farmer with business skills.
This is potentially a very successful route forward for the young men who are working with Future Farmers Foundation. In most cases they bring a wealth of enthusiasm, integrity and outstanding work ethic into the partnership. The farmer delivers a successful farming operation and his many years of experience as a business manager. It is a win-win relationship because they need and benefit from one another. Above all, they trust one another.
In all of the cases, the farmers are older than the young men, and there is the potential, in due course, for the young men to buy out the farmer, possibly as the farm owner reaches retirement age. However, the young farmer will probably need the farm owner or manager to guide him and teach him business skills for a period of 15 to 20 years. Synergies will evolve in these relationships. These lads are being set up for success.
Because these youngsters come from disadvantaged backgrounds, they need a bit of a hand up, so if you think that your organisation is in a position to step up to the plate, we would be very happy to speak to you.
If you know a farmer or are a farmer who would be interested in learning more about the Future Farmers Foudation (http://www.futurefarmersfoundation.com/), please contact us.

http://www.awesomesa.co.za/newsr/297-future-farmers-foundation-working-together-for-agricultural-excellence.html

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:03 AM

Not sure how to paste pdf articles so link,

http://www.croplifeafrica.org/uploads/File/publications/5199_CS_2009_05_19_Farmer_Profile_-_South_Africa_-_Khoza_-_A_fair_deal_for_future_farmers.pdf

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:17 AM

Seven costly mistakes

Jonathan Jansen | 05 April, 2012 05:42

Prof Jonathan Jansen
MAMPHELA Ramphele has nothing to lose. As a semi-retired older woman with a more than sufficient pension fund, she is not dependent on anyone, let alone the ruling party, for a job.

As a former activist with impeccable struggle credentials, she commands attention. So when the former World Bank vice-president says education was better under apartheid than it is today, more than a few angry politicians would be singing Umshini wami.

Is she right?

It is almost two decades since the start of a major shake-up to education in South Africa, and to understand the state of schools, colleges and universities today, we need to understand how we got here.

Of course, the long shadow of apartheid continues to haunt present-day education, especially with respect to the gross inequality that separates the top 20% of well-functioning, well-resourced public schools from the mess that constitutes the remaining 80% of schools.

But it would be disingenuous to blame this mess only on the apartheid legacy. We have had almost 20 years to begin fixing the problem.
What did we do, and fail to do, that madeRamphele issue this astounding claim? Specifically, what were the seven major mistakes made in education since the middle 1990s?

Mistake number one must be Outcomes-Based Education. Even government agrees it was a mistake, and who can forget the current basic education minister trying desperately to deny support for these sweeping curricular changes? But think of the costs financially and operationally. Almost 30000 schools were misled into thinking that, by adopting this complex curriculum plan, teaching and learning would improve. Instead, scholastic achievement is worse than ever, from literacy and numeracy in the foundation years to the disastrous National Senior Certificate results in Grade 12.

Mistake number two must be the indiscriminate voluntary severance packages offered to teachers at the dawn of democracy. To be fair, this hair-brained scheme started even before 1994, but the new government implemented it in an attempt to "right size" the teaching corps and save money. The result? The best teachers left the system. The teachers who remained behind, especially in the most disadvantaged schools, were in general those with weaker teaching qualifications and experience than those who left.

Mistake number three was closing good teacher education colleges. Let me be clear, some of the colleges had to be closed. Colleges in the homelands produced the worst teachers. But there were good colleges, like the Johannesburg College of Education, the Normaal Kollege Pretoria, the Giyani Teachers College and the Bellville Teachers College. But for a government with a reform hammer that sees all problems as nails, all the colleges were shut down or incorporated into universities. That was a mistake, for universities are not the best places for training primary school teachers.

Mistake number four was the irrational mergers of some universities that made absolutely no sense. The merger of Medunsa, a medical school in Pretoria, with the University of the North in Polokwane, made no sense for reasons of geographical, political and emotional distance. It should have been merged with the medical school at Tukkies, down the road, as was the case with the veterinary sciences.

Mistake number five was the merger of universities with technikons to constitute what government calls comprehensive universities. Ask 10 senior people in higher education what a comprehensive university is, and you will get 10 different answers. We decided on mergers for political reasons, and then, after the act, queried what we should call them. Technikons should have stayed as top-quality technical institutions offering world-class technical qualifications, not quasi-universities pretending to pursue university-type research.

Mistake number six was neglect of mother tongue instruction, especially in township schools. A solid foundation is required in the mother tongue to ease the later transition to the national universities. The black middle classes sent their children to non-mother tongue schools, in part to escape the tragedy of dysfunctional schools. In the process, our children lacked solid grounding in any language, a prerequisite for strong academic learning.

Mistake number seven was the failure to install basic minimum standards for school education which were legally enforceable. The legal notion of "adequacy" in the funding of schools that applies in countries like the US does not apply here.

As a consequence, nobody can be held accountable for the huge discrepancies in infrastructure among different schools.
Through a combination of legacy, neglect and bad policy decisions, our educational institutions are indeed in a worse state than before.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-04-fix-sa-education-with-teachers-not-bureaucrats/

But back to Agriculture please.

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:23 AM

Nguni project opens opportunities for rural communal farmers
15:00 (GMT+2), Mon, 13 February 2012

By Peter Mashala

A farmer development project involving collaboration between universities, the department of agriculture and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is starting to prove successful for emerging cattle farmers in seven provinces.

Launched seven years ago, the Nguni Cattle Development Project involves the establishment of registered Nguni cattle herds in communal villages over a period of five years. It is currently running in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, Free State, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

In each province, the department of agriculture is partnered with a university, namely the University of Fort Hare (Eastern Cape), the University of Limpopo (Limpopo and Mpumalanga), the University of the Free State (Free State and Northern Cape), the University of Zululand (KwaZulu-Natal) and North West University (North West).

According to the IDC’s Tommy Mohajane, the universities are responsible for providing management and technical support to farmers, as well as handling the administrative work. To qualify for the project, farmers must have sufficient land to accommodate cattle numbers at recommended rates, explained Mohajane.

Applicants must also be in possession of certified proof indicating ownership, lease-right or use-right of the land. “Leases should be of no less than five years,” said Mohajane. In addition, farmers must adhere to the project’s rules, which include ensuring that livestock is managed in a controlled environment and supervised daily.

After five years, the beneficiary must return the cattle loan to the project’s herd. Cedric Mojapelo, Limpopo’s project manager, said the project was launched there in 2006, and implemented in 2007. “We have 38 sites in different districts,” he added, noting that beneficiaries are individuals, community trusts and co-operatives.

In the first year, the project gave 20 Nguni cows and a bull to each beneficiary, he explained, adding that the amount of cattle given out on loan has since increased to 30 cows and a bull. The Limpopo project managed to build a total herd of 4 400 cattle of which 2 800 cows and calves have been loaned out. To date, the procurement of animals in Limpopo has cost more than R13,7 million, he added.

Andrew Mathe, North West project leader, said the province has 43 sites already. The project has distributed about 989 heifers and 43 bulls to beneficiaries since its inception and the procurement cost has been more than R11 million. The combined herd established at all sites is about 2 840, he added.

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=14891&h=Nguni-project-opens-opportunities-for-rural-communal-farmers

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:40 AM

Improving the ‘Zulu chicken’
08:30 (GMT+2), Tue, 20 March 2012

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/img/fwa2012320153022.jpg Zweliphi Sithole (left), an extension officer from the department of agriculture, with household farmer John Malanda and his flock of chickens.

By Robyn Joubert

Increasing the productivity of traditional chickens is an easy way of providing food and income for rural families. Dr Ed Wethli spoke to Robyn Joubert about the success of the Umzimkhulu village chicken improvement project.

Chickens are a common sight on rural homesteads across South Africa. These are so-called ‘village chickens’, also named ‘indigenous foragers’ or ‘Zulu chickens’. Yet although these birds are so common, families seldom eat them and almost never eat the eggs.

According to Dr Ed Wethli, a poultry expert and the former head of training of the KwaZulu-Natal Poultry Institute (KZNPI), the main reason for this is that the birds’ mortality rate is high and few eggs are produced. So it’s difficult to increase the average family flock of about five hens and one or two cocks.

Yet with a little money, time and attention, it’s possible to improve the productivity of these chickens – providing not only a ready source of meat and eggs for families, but extra birds for sale and barter.

Chicken project
With this in mind, Dr Wethli launched the Umzimkhulu village chicken improvement project in May 2010 in conjunction with Zweliphi Sithole, an extension officer from the provincial department of agriculture, and Ndumiso Khumalo of the KZNPI. The venture was financially supported by ABSA Corporate Bank.

“Village chickens have the genetic potential to respond favourably to better management. The idea is to transform village farmers from passive to active chicken producers using basic chicken management skills,” says Dr Wethli. A total of 14 participants – 10 of whom were women – were chosen from three villages in Umzimkhulu.

They began by attending a one-day workshop at the KZNPI in Bisley, near Pietermaritzburg, at which they learnt the basics of record keeping. This was followed by a one-week course, at which they were taught management techniques that covered diseases, pests and parasites, and chicken housing.

Each participant was then given building materials to construct a simple chicken house to protect the birds at night. After the course, Dr Wethli and Zweliphi paid regular on-site visits to the farmers.

Better all round
Six months later, every aspect of chicken production had improved. The average flock size had increased from 19 to 29 birds per household, mortality had been reduced in 62% of households, and disease control showed an 82% improvement. Just over a third of the participants had started collecting eggs and many were using selective breeding.

A year later, towards the end of 2011, the situation looked even better, with an average of 43 birds per household. “At this stage, all participants had improved the housing for their chickens and the birds generally looked healthier,” says Dr Wethli. But the best news of all was that participants were now eating much better!

Before the project started, each household would eat one chicken every three or four months; now they were eating an average of one or two a month. Each household was now also eating an average of eight eggs a month. In addition, the extra chickens were bringing in cash. It was estimated that an average family with five hens and one cock could produce 10 chickens from each hen every year, or 50 chicks a year.

Before the project started, families were lucky if a hen raised one or two chicks from a brood of 12. “If the family eats one chicken every two weeks, they still have 25 chickens which can be sold at R60 each, which means R1 500 per year,” says Dr Wethli. “That’s excluding any bartering or egg sales.”

Clementine Chiya, the project vice-chairperson, says she had not realised how productive the chickens could be. Her flock has doubled from about 30 birds to 60, including chicks. “We now collect eggs every day and I slaughter a chicken every Sunday. I don’t normally sell chickens, but if someone wants to buy one, I sell it for R50 to R60. This project has improved my life,” she says.

Clementine gives her flock a little extra food, mainly yellow maize and eggs. The course participants were taught to boil and chop up unhatched eggs – shells and all. This is put down in the evenings to encourage the hens to come home to roost and to give the chicks extra nutrition.

Minimal costs
Feeding and caring for the chickens is designed to cost as little as possible and be completely sustainable. “The farmers should provide a basic chicken house and pay for the few low-cost inputs, such as vaccines (about R100 a year) and possibly some chicken feed to reduce chick mortality,” says Dr Wethli. “But selling three to four birds can cover these annual costs.

“It’s hoped that these farmers will continue their good work, encouraging other farmers in the area to become involved and contribute towards rural food security.” In particular, Dr Wethli would like to see the project started in other parts of South Africa.

Contact Dr Ed Wethli on 083 758 1510, or email edwethli@gmail.com.

Issue date: 09 March 2012

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=16282&h=Improving-the-Zulu-chicken (http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=16282&h=Improving-the-%E2%80%98Zulu-chicken%E2%80%99)

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=16282&h=Improving-the-%E2%80%98Zulu-chicken%E2%80%99

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:40 AM

From city dweller to commercial farmer
06:46 (GMT+2), Thu, 08 December 2011

Mojalefa Molefe moved from Soweto to Mokgwaneng, Limpopo, to take care of the family's cattle herd after his father's death. In seeking to adopt more modern - and profitable - farming methods, he has made plenty of mistakes, but has learned a great deal too. Peter Mashala visited him.

“If you have the right attitude, there’s nothing you can’t do.” This is the courageous philosophy of Mojalefa Molefe, who was thrust into farming as a young man after the death of his father.
It’s an attitude that has produced excellent results in a few short years – and promises a bright future for this ambitious youngster. Mojalefa’s father, Elias, worked on a farm near Marble Hall, Limpopo, before moving to Soweto, where he and his wife Maria raised two sons and three daughters.
Elias yearned to return to farming and later returned to Makgwaneng, about 45km from Marble Hall, to start a small cattle herd. Sadly, his dream was cut short when he died in 2001, leaving Mojalefa, as the eldest son, with the burden of caring for his family and herd.
It was decided, however, that Mojalefa should first finish his education at Lenasia High School in Soweto. This he did in 2005, after which he returned home to the 8,5ha rented plot at Makgwaneng.
Here he faced a daunting task: a herd of about 150 mixed-breed cattle (some of poor quality), a broken-down tractor and truck, and collapsed fences. Mojalefa began by selling a few of the cattle to effect some repairs.
After this, he continued farming in the same way his father had done: he kept the cattle in the kraal overnight, let them out to graze during the day, and sold them locally for weddings and funerals.
Soon, he realised that this old-fashioned way of farming was not getting him anywhere. The buyers were not prepared to pay good prices even for his better cattle, and there was thus no incentive to improve his herd.
The move to commercial
Mojalefa made a far-reaching decision: to move away from the informal market and set his sights on a commercial farming business. In 2008, he took a livestock course at Buhle Academy in Delmas, Mpumalanga, and learned the basics of farming profitably with cattle.
Mojalefa’s first goal after completing the course was to improve his herd. To do this, he sold several cows and bought a Simmentaler bull from a commercial farmer in the area. “I chose the Simmentaler because of its high milk production and meat content,” he explains.
A big animal, the Simmentaler struggled at first to mate with Mojalefa’s smaller-framed cattle. Despite this initial difficulty, it has since managed to give him no fewer than 40 calves. Mojalefa also implemented other valuable lessons learned at Buhle, such as keeping records and vaccinating all the cattle.
He began using tags to identify the animals and keeping accurate information on birth dates and age.
He weans the calves at seven months. Because he doesn’t own a scale for measuring weights at weaning, he studies the calf’s appearance.
“If the calf’s body condition isn’t good, I let it suckle at least for another month,” he says. Mojalefa separates the weaners from their mothers until the calves have become used to grazing on their own. This takes about six months.
He has learned the importance of keeping only productive animals. As he has to pay for grazing, every cow costs him money. I sell all the unproductive cows after monitoring their performance for at least two seasons,” he explains.
Mojalefa also sells cows that give weak calves, noting: “If, for two years, it gives me a poor calf, out it goes.”

Graxing
One of the biggest challenges Mojalefa faces is lack of grazing. He is forced to lease land from the village’s plot owners, which costs him R600/month. To ease this problem, he started a feedlot earlier this year. Unfortunately, he failed to do his homework and follow basic feedlot principles, relying instead on casual advice from other farmers and co-op salespeople.

This was a mistake, he admits, and he suffered a significant financial loss. After this, he joined the Obaro Emerging Farmer Feedlot Project, and started with nine weaners in July. It’s clear that Mojalefa was a very quick learner indeed: his first three finishers were runner-ups in the carcass competition run by the SA Meat Industry Company (Samic) at this year’s Pretoria Show.

An eye-opener
Mojalefa says that entering this competition has taught him a great deal. The most vital lesson has been the importance of improving his herd by using quality bulls. Noticing that his Simmentaler bull struggles with the fierce Limpopo heat, Mojalefa intends cross-breeding with a Simbra, a synthetic breed developed from Simmentaler and Brahman. The hardy Brahman genes will in time strengthen the heat resistance of his entire herd.

To reduce his costs, Mojalefa uses 4ha of his land to grow maize for cattle and chicken feed. He keeps free-range chickens for eggs and meat for the family. During winter, he mills the maize and combines this with lick and molasses as a supplement. “I make sure that the cattle are fed this every evening during July and August as there isn’t enough grazing,” he explains. The bull is kept at home and fed on white buffalo grass.

The future
Mojalefa concedes that his farming still has a long way to go, but he remains optimistic and is determined to learn as much as he possibly can. After completing the Buhle course, he studied an advanced farm management course at MGK and a livestock course at the ARC.

“It’s important to study to make sure you’re on the right path,” he says. Regrettably, lack of government support is hampering his journey on this path. He has applied several times to the provincial department of agriculture for help to improve the water supply and infrastructure on the farm. There has been no response.

However, it will take more than this to dampen the enthusiasm of this 26-year-old. Inheriting a traditional cattle herd and old-fashioned methods, Mojalefa has changed his entire approach and is determined to fulfil his dream of breeding Simbras on his own farm and having a feedlot for at least 2 000 cattle.

Contact Mojalefa Molefe on 073 268 9214.
Caption:
Hardy Simbra cattle, which Mojalefa Molefe intends breeding on his farm.
WAYNE SOUTHWOOD

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=11029&h=From-city-dweller-to-commercial-farmer

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 01:43 AM

Empowering emerging citrus farmers
07:17 (GMT+2), Wed, 07 December 2011

By Mike Burgess

Since 2007, a family-run citrus business near Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape has partnered with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to empower emerging citrus farmers in the former Ciskei.

“We have been in the business for 100 years, and we want to be in it for the next 100. To do that we have to start creating wealth for the local people.”
This is what Colin Painter, managing director of Riverside Advisory Services (RAS), had to say about the company’s eagerness to partner with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) in developing citrus farms in the upper Kat River Valley and near Alice, Peddie and Keiskammahoek in the former Ciskei.
RAS was created in 2009 as a subsidiary of Riverside Holdings (Pty) Ltd, which has been supporting emerging farmers in the area for more than a decade to boost fruit volumes moving through the Riverside packhouse on the outskirts of Fort Beaufort.
“The benefit was in the joint marketing and packing, while also bringing down our costs in the packhouse and increasing volumes,” Colin explains.
A good track record
Riverside Holdings is owned by two of the oldest Fort Beaufort families, the Roberts and Painter families. The DJ Roberts family owns 25,3%, the LM Roberts family owns 23,6%, the CL Painter family owns 25,1% while an export business, the Lona Group, owns 26% of the business.
This Fairtrade-accredited business grows, packs and exports citrus for European markets and has been involved in the pioneering of citrus production in the region since the early 1900s.
But in 2000, Solly Sikotile from the former Ciskei approached the company for assistance and Riverside became aware of the need to assist emerging farmers. Solly was to be the first of five emerging farmers to receive technical and financial support from Riverside.
All the farmers had received land expropriated from commercial farmers for incorporation into the former Ciskei (which gained “independence’’ in the early 1980s).
However, by the mid-1990s, the implosion of the former Ciskei and subsequently the parastatal Ulimicor, that supported these emerging farmers, left many black farmers in debt and unable to farm effectively.
But since Riverside became involved, Solly has proved to be a skilled farmer and is one of nine emerging farmers who produce 20% of fruit passing through the Riverside packhouse. The packhouse is projected to process an estimated 17 000t fruit in 2012.
With the help of IDC funds, Solly expanded his citrus orchard from 25ha to 35,5ha along with 2,6ha of pomegranates. He is grateful for Riverside’s support, and especially that of his long-time mentor and friend, Lew Roberts, managing director of Kat River Farms (Pty) Ltd, also a subsidiary of Riverside.
“I have been working with him [Lew] for a long time. If I can’t sort out a problem, I phone him,’’ he says.
Colin is hopeful that the 17 emerging farmers in this area currently benefiting from the R77 million IDC funding and risk capital (in phase one and two of the IDC’s Pro-Orchard project) will make the most of the expansion of orchards from 97ha in 2007 to a projected 550ha in 2013.
Most will be citrus while pomegranate and avocado trees will also be planted. Colin points out that this would not have been possible without bridging finance from Uvimba Finance, along with R8,5 million grant funding for land preparation via the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme.
Furthermore, R7,5 million grant funding from land reform packages has also made a significant impact.
Fighting for state support
According to Lew Roberts, the IDC funding since 2007 for emerging farmers in the former Ciskei has come as a relief to Riverside, as supporting emerging farmers has put the company under financial strain.
“We thought we would go into this development and the money [from the state] would just flow, but it didn’t. All sorts of red tape crops up all the time,” explains Lew. “The initiative has not been easy; it’s put a lot of strain on our own resources.”

Colin agrees that the lack of reinvestment in Riverside has been directly linked to the company having millions tied up in loans for emerging farmers. “It is an enormous challenge, because we have not been able to reinvest in our own business,’’ he explains. “All our cash is sitting in these growers – R8,7 million up to date.”

He says that generally his attempts at leveraging effective and meaningful state support for emerging farmers has been disappointing. “The government works in silos,’’ he explains. “There has been inertia, lack of delivery and lack of caring as far as I am concerned.”

Colin says Riverside has waited for years for the signing of a lease agreement between the land reform department and a particular emerging farmer to legitimise IDC funding. Years in which Riverside has felt obliged not to let the particular farmer down.

“We had approval for IDC funding on nine projects, eight are operating, but for one we have been waiting for a simple lease agreement since 2006,” he says. “We can’t go and pull the plug on that grower.” Nevertheless, Colin is optimistic about the future. He says the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) has shown increased commitment in negotiations over the past few months to secure important funds via the Recapitalisation and Development Programme (RECAP) to contribute to phase three of the Pro-Orchard project.

“In the last few months I have seen them delivering; they answer their emails and phones. That’s a big change,” he says.
“The RECAP programme can really put these farms on a good footing and they will be able to sustain themselves after five years. We pushed hard to get the funds in place so they [emerging farmers] don’t have to rely too much on funding from us or the IDC – we have applied for RECAP [funds] for 14 farms.”

According to Colin, phase three – which has not yet been approved – will include funding from the IDC, DRDLR and Land Bank to expand orchards by another 400ha and establish an agro-processing facility.

A brighter future
Yes, financially it is hard on the company for now, but in the long term this is the way forward; this is the way we have to help. You can’t just sit and watch while your neighbour is struggling and you have the expertise to help him,” says Riverside CEO Sieg Gericke who left Fort Beaufort to farm in Zimbabwe more than a decade ago before returning to SA.

“When I left 11 years ago for Zimbabwe, the upper Kat River Valley was in a shambles. I came back 11 years later and everywhere you go in the upper Kat 2011you see citrus growing – it’s fantastic.” The redevelopment of this area is undoubtedly dependent on the impact of significant funding packages and also on the invaluable services that RAS provides to emerging farmers.

This includes providing access to international markets; packing, cooling and exporting operations along with technical, production, financial, administrative and legal expertise; as well as support. RAS currently mentors 11 operational emerging farmers and supports another six non-operational emerging farmers benefiting from IDC loans. It also mentors a pilot programme initiated by the Citrus Growers Association, Citrus Research International and the national Department of Agriculture.

Upper Kat River emerging farmer Clifford Ncamile Dyonase has no doubt about the value of RAS’s mentoring and support, especially in light of its prompt accessibility and professionalism. “I can phone [RAS] any time for assistance. It helps us to do our books and taxes,” he explains. “And it is close by. If we request something we don’t need to wait for somebody in Port Elizabeth or elsewhere.”

Furthermore, he explains that an emerging farmer’s mere association with an established agribusiness such as Riverside can be significant. “I think IDC couldn’t assist us unless there were companies such as Riverside that have that potential.

“The members have been farmers for some time,” he says as we walk to an orchard of young trees on the farm he has been living on since the early 1990s. By 2013, this farm will have been transformed from 0,56ha of old citrus trees (from 2007) to 28,7ha of citrus in 2012 with another 4ha of avocados to be planted by 2013.

Email Riverside Holdings (Pty) Ltd on admin@riversidesa.co.za (http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/%5C%22mailto:admin@riversidesa.co.za%5C%22).

Issue date: 9 December 2011

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=11073&h=Empowering-emerging-citrus-farmers

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 03:32 AM

One recurring point you both make is that of education(or the lack of it amongst black people) would have had me believe that black people in this country are generally against education. If I didn't live in this country(like Mr USA here) I would probably believe the drivel, but no! I do live here, and I know that we have very high access to basic education, (DoBE, stats SA say that)

Don't think either of us said there was a lack of it amongst blacks, but i did say that one needs education and more non-whites need to go though university and colleges for agriculture, what that has to do with you mentioning blacks im unsure of other than they at university to study better things other than agriculture. Thats their choice, but if not enough study agriculture not much will change unfortunately.
I actually did find an articles of non-whites doing internships overseas to gain experience to become South Africans future farmers. Hope more is done on this as all are needed for food security. Posted one earlier, and there are many more I'll post over time.

Black parents aren't holding their childlren back from attending school, and it is generally in the extreme cases(kid opharned by aids... Must now work to live... A phenomenon that doesn't generally affect whites so its fine if this "excuse" doesn't fly with you) that they don't take up schooling. We appreciate the value of education.

It does Fly, I agree with you 100%, most won't understand this, actually my wife had to quit school in grade 10 because she had 5 younger siblings to look after for family reasons. Whether it is caring or working, dropping out of school has the same effect.

As for the standards of that education, it would have have lowered amongst whites wouldn't it?(though I doubt it has) from the apartheid days, when they had everything to make a quality education system, resources, stable families and homes. Blacks on the hand well... It is only now that they're getting class rooms(as evidence by the constant building of schools in the country) while whites generally use decades old schools. Bantu education need I say more...
Many a times I've heard the government admit the need for better educators, as many are unqualified to teach. The system handed to the anc was not working for black people, it was never built to in fact. The DoBE has plans to turn that around.

I'm sure they do!! They have been saying that for 18ish years so when can the kids actually get a good education?

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2012/04/05/seven-costly-mistakes
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-04-f...t-bureaucrats/ (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-04-fix-sa-education-with-teachers-not-bureaucrats/)

Not mine either:
South Africa: Govt Has Shut Over 4000 Schools Since 2007

The main reason cited for the closures was the decline in pupil numbers as a result of poor performance of township and rural schools.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201201200759.html
Fed-up parents in Eastern Cape have "unofficially" shut down about 300 schools in their communities because they would rather send their children elsewhere to receive a better education.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/03/26/parents-shut-down-294-schools

The anc is not perfect, but is solely responsible for all the ills of this country, nope! We all know how because of the remarkable stance they took after apartheid had ended we avoided genocide, but did not address the economic imbalances of this country. Mr USA if the kind of unfairness existed in your country heads would have rolled. 25% unemployment... You're about to vote off the greatest president you've had in a while(judging by you're belief in death sentences, and general un kindness to the misfortune of others I presume you're voting red) for 8% unemployment(which he didn't cause by the way, but whatever). The suggestion that somehow old people with children to feed and families to take of would better off instead going to school is insane.

Fist part is a point of view different discussion. ( Claiming freedom of speech there lol ):)
I voted Blue BTW and will again. ( not sure if i should say that publicly:) ) I may delete this part if the "Reds attack me"
Thats another issue as close to 50% of USA disagree with me:)
No political party is perfect (some issues will always cross the line.)
Need to refind but Unemployment was think 17% in 1997 and 27% about now in SA, in USA was 4.9% about in 1997 and yes now about 8% and since Obama took office unemployment has dropped "even in a global decline" so what has SA done ? Lost jobs? All Bric countries are doing better in the global decline except SA.. Why?

Not sure what you mean by this "The suggestion that somehow old people with children to feed and families to take of would better off instead going to school is insane."
Presume : No gov needs to help the older generation and help the younger to go to school. Isnt that what the Education Budget and Grants bugdet is for?

And no! No one is saying twenty somthing year olds take up farming, those people are in varsity doing other things. There are however some black people working for white farmers( and the problem is that, that is the only case and never the other way around). And by god if you believe that is right( or fair) then...

Posted an article earlier seems some are studying to change the future, will find more but if few are studying how do you expect it to change from working for white farmers? A bit of a contradiction as if there are no black farmers surely it cant be the other way round? Surely we all need to do something to help change that? Alot of people are trying to exchange knowledge and skills as well as help communities, to put them down is wrong. Rather try contribute to those actually trying to make a difference..

Talk soon Kwazimoto maybe we can together with others help.

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 04:02 AM

South Africa's last tea farm tries to bounce back after costly pay dispute

Tuesday 6 March 2012 14.36 EST
At Magwa, the largest tea plantation in the southern hemisphere, machines lie idle and the future is far from clear

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2012/3/6/1331043461205/Tea-leaves-being-plucked-007.jpg Workers harvesting tea at Magwa before the dispute. Photograph: Gideon Mendel

Thulami Mtembu has worked at Magwa tea farm for 33 years. For him it's more than a job. "It's the smell. Every day I come here I feel so refreshed," he says. "I love the aroma of the tea bush. The conditions here make our tea special."
The fragrant, lime-green bushes stretch away to the horizon at the biggest tea plantation in the southern hemisphere. It is a deceptively tranquil scene. Magwa has been racked by strikes, violence and financial strife that have brought production to a standstill and put its future in doubt.
The crisis encapsulates South Africa (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa)'s struggle to realise the potential of its wealth of natural resources. It is a story of low or unpaid wages, powerful unions (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/unions), political inertia and allegations of financial mismanagement. It is a stark example of self-destruction.
The 1,800-hectare (4,450 acre) Magwa farm outside Lusikisiki in Eastern Cape province is blessed with an ideal climate and soil type for growing tea. At its peak five years ago it came close to profitability, producing 2.7m tonnes of tea in a season, sold in advance to countries including Britain, China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The farm employed 1,200 permanent and 2,300 seasonal workers.
But when the market shrank and the tea price declined, the problems began. The provincial economic development corporation stepped in and, despite emergency subsidies from the state, tensions over wages erupted.
The farm claimed its workers were the best paid in the industry, earning five times more than their counterparts in Malawi. But even today, some still earn 1,100 rand (£91) a month, below the national minimum wage of R1,376 for farm work, according to Nkosinathi Mbolo, who is arbitrating between management and employees.
Sweating in the afternoon sun, Vukile Jikwayo, 51, a mechanic clad in blue overalls, said he earned R1,250 a month: "It is not enough. That is why we are still fighting. The money is too little – I have to buy food and educate five children. All we want is a better income."
From 2009, the workers rebelled over changes to their terms of conditions which they said were made without consultation. Labourers who pluck tea leaves and throw them over their shoulder into a backpack were told to increase their haul from 200kg to 253kg a day on the same pay, according to the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu).
Then, despite tight finances, Magwa's management gave pay rises of 100% to some workers but not others, the union claims. "This led to conflict among the workers: management was selective in terms of compensation," said Mbalisi Tonga, Fawu's provincial secretary in Eastern Cape. "The manager said he would reward, in his words, 'deserving cases'."
Tonga said there was further resentment when, to comply with the law, workers' lunch breaks were extended from 30 minutes to an hour – but with a deduction of six rand. "At that point, they unified the workers. The workers said we must fight and the strike started."
There was a strike in 2010 and again in 2011. What happened during the latter is bitterly disputed. Tonga claims picketing workers were beaten and arrested by police. Magwa's management accused the workers of a violent rampage in which shots were fired, buildings gutted and a security guard killed.
Estate manager Mtembu said: "The place was ruined. They burned all the houses, destroyed protective clothing and removed everything – furniture, ceilings, floors, windows. It was a looting spree. They bashed and burned managers' cars. Offices were torched and quite a lot of rebuilding had to be done.
"The management ran away and it was a free-for-all. A security guard was killed and supervisors were severely beaten. Any manager present that day would have been killed too. We've had strikes before but nothing as violent as this one. It was workers versus management. Some of the workers themselves were beaten because they got caught off guard."
King Masangwana, a factory manager, said: "It was so violent you can't stand it. You had to run for your life."
Magwa security manager Daan Schoeman was quoted by South African media last year as saying a manager called him with a desperate plea for help. "He said, 'Help Daan, they're killing me,' but I couldn't do anything. It was impossible to get in. They chopped him up with pangas [machete-like tools], but he made it out [alive]. One of the security guards, though, was shot dead. It was terrible. That day, I started becoming an old man."
The union denies the charges. Tonga said: "From the information we got, there was no violence. We trust our sources because there were court cases. Complainants … have not been able to sustain their claims in court."
Asked about the death, he replied: "I have heard about it and some members were taken to court, but it could not be sustained and they were acquitted." The management used the strikes as a convenient excuse to flee, Tonga added. "You can't, when you have a strike, go away. This escalates the strike. We sympathise with the taxpayers. As the management, you are supposed to take the responsibility and face it. That's what they have been failing to do.
"What happens at Magwa is that if there's a strike, it's a holiday for management. They got paid for sitting at home. We try talking to them but they are not available."
The general manager, Ian Crawford, left the estate last September. Attempts by the Guardian to contact him failed. Last month, speaking to South Africa (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/southafrica)'s Financial Mail, he described Magwa as "a murky, messy scenario with politicians and other people ducking and diving" and said he was taking it to court for money he is owed.
"Until the politics around Magwa is resolved and discipline is restored in the workplace, it will never recover," he added. "I don't believe it will ever get up and running again. It's game over for a project that had huge potential to uplift poor people."
Crawford has been criticised by workers and the government alike. Ayabulela Ngoqo of the department of rural development and agrarian reform, said: "Mr Crawford was running Magwa like his own house. He was a man who could stop on the side of the road and sign a cheque. There was a revolt from the workers who were not satisfied with the way he was managing Magwa."
Other managers who had left the farm in February 2011 returned in November, too late to save that year's harvest. In some months workers went unpaid.
Mtembu said: "When we came back, pruning was a waste of time. A whole season was lost: maybe about R30m. Everything we are doing now is getting ready for next season. We talk to the workers – but we make sure we don't talk about the past."
An uneasy truce has been reached, with managers and workers in dialogue, though some managers remain offsite. But a shortage of funds to invest in tractors, trailers, coal and diesel means that employees have been reduced to "piece work" of six hours instead of the standard nine. The fields are being maintained in readiness but there is no guarantee of a harvest in September.
Machinery is lying idle. The last date written on a chalkboard at the entrance is 04-02-11. Inside the giant sheds, rows of conveyor belts are standing still and tea-cutting equipment gathers dust. Power generators are lifeless, while vast coal boilers for steaming tea are empty. "This would normally be operating at full steam," said Mbolo. "But there is a shortage of coal and parts."
So the paralysis continues. Mtembu said: "As far as production is concerned, there is nothing happening. We don't have funds to buy coal or diesel. We have made requests to the government. It did promise R20m to assist with the planting but sometimes politicians make promises and don't cover all the costs.
"There is no pay rise. We cannot predict another strike. If the workers want to do those things they'll simply do them. If they want to resort to violence, they'll resort to violence. It depends on the quality of the union leadership."
But Mtembu is determined and optimistic that South Africa's last tea plantation can be saved. "I would not have come back if I did not feel the company has potential. There's no point sitting at home with so much knowledge: let me assist. The company was once a star and can be a star again. Once you get this place going, it will be so beautiful."
That will require some 30m rand to be found – and quickly.
Ngoqo said the government was still working on a rescue package. "The department is trying to source funding so the farm can be running smoothly and undertaking harvesting. It is a priority. We don't want the people to lose their jobs."
Until then, Magwa is left clinging to past glories. Tonga reflected: "People say it's the best quality tea. Twenty years ago they got a trophy from France for the best tea in the world. That trophy is not there now. I don't know if it got lost or burned down with the office."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/06/magwa-tea-plantation-dispute-south-africa

gregbb

April 9th, 2012, 04:07 AM

Obama On $1.2 Billion Black Farmers Settlement: 'Brings Us Closer To The Ideals Of Freedom and Equality'

First Posted: 10/28/11 06:59 PM ET Updated: 10/28/11 06:59 PM ET

President Barack Obama called a judge's approval of a $1.2 billion government settlement with black farmers who for decades had been denied loans and assistance from the Agriculture Department, a step forward in "addressing an unfortunate chapter in USDA's civil rights history."
This is the second round of settlements in a case filed in 1997, which alleged that thousands of black farmers had been discriminated against between 1983 and 1997. This round is directed at farmers who were not awarded payment because of missed filing deadlines. The judge said payments would likely be dispersed in a year or so, after neutral parties reviewed the individual claims.
"This agreement will provide overdue relief and justice to African American farmers, and bring us closer to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on," Obama said in a statement.
"So many farmers had given up hope that this would ever come to pass," said John Boyd, the head of the National Black Farmers Association, according to CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/28/us/black-farmers/). "It's gonna take about a year to run all the farmers through the system. Each case will have to be looked at in a forum that's also looked at by the court. Once the cases are checked, then the farmers start to get their money."
And during a briefing this afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that the settlement helps "African-American farmers to focus on the future and brings us one step closer to giving these farmers a chance to have their claims heard."
Blacks now make up about 1 percent of the nation's farmers and ranchers, according to the USDA. In 1920, blacks made up roughly 14 percent of the nation's farmers.
The federal government has acknowledged historic racial bias and in 1999 settled a class-action lawsuit that alleged discrimination in government loans.

Earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) called the settlement a waste of federal money (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/michele-bachmann-black-farmer-settlement_n_902160.html). King likened the settlement to "modern-day reparations" and said that much of the settlement "was just paid out in fraudulent claims." King went on to criticize the Obama administration's plan to resolve separate lawsuits filed by Hispanic and female farmers.
"That's another at least $1.3 billion," King said during a news conference after the pair toured flooded area in Iowa near the Missouri River. "I'd like to apply that money to the people that are under water right now."
Bachmann seconded King's criticism, chiming in that, "When money is diverted to inefficient projects, like the Pigford project, where there seems to be proof-positive of fraud, we can't afford $2 billion in potentially fraudulent claims when that money can be used to benefit the people along the Mississippi River and the Missouri River."

gregbb

April 10th, 2012, 11:52 PM

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=5044&h=New-broom-for-Eastern-Cape-agriculture

The Eastern Cape seems to be hammered by livestock diseases. What is the situation like with your state vets?
Personally, I haven’t seen a state vet for years. Have they become extinct?

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 01:38 AM

gregbb, are you Zulu?

Yuri S Andrade

April 11th, 2012, 05:47 PM

^^
I'm sorry gregbb, but that's only a drop in the ocean. It's not isolated (though good) initiatives that will change the big picture. South Africa government activelly promoted the destruction of its farming industry in the past decades. And the reason was the worst possible: racism. I want to see the white farmers back to business, especially the ones in Orange and Transvaal, pushing the SA farming exports to the 30 billion dollar mark, at least. Meanwhile, I'll be skeptical.

I know South African forumers like to see the brightside of everything, to balance the negativism about the country, but let's face it: SA has an huge problem here and it should be dealt with. Cities like Welkom, Klerksdorp, Pietersburg, Witbank, Nelspruit should be similar to the typical US midwestern cities, not like those decrepit places they've turned into.

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 05:52 PM

^^You are a shit, a racist. I see your nasty games, if you come in this forum to say still this shit, I would ask that we fire you. GARBAGE.

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 05:56 PM

Never come in the forum Africa. KICK AWAY! And fast!!

Yuri S Andrade

April 11th, 2012, 06:13 PM

^^You are a shit, a racist. I see your nasty games, if you come in this forum to say still this shit, I would ask that we fire you. GARBAGE.

I've just reported you, troll!

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 06:22 PM

I've just reported you, troll!

me also. troll

Yuri S Andrade

April 11th, 2012, 06:24 PM

^^
:lol:

For what?

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 06:24 PM

Yuri S Andrade

April 11th, 2012, 06:27 PM

^^
:lol::lol::lol:

Those are MY OPINIONS and some FACTS. Quite different from: "shit", "racist", "nasty games", "this shit", "garbage" of yours. Really, grow up and learn to show some respect.

SUNS 25

April 11th, 2012, 06:31 PM

Please, return Brazilian forum. thank.

gregbb

April 12th, 2012, 01:35 AM

Yuri get a life South Africa has different problems which have been posted before.

I'd like to see ALL farmers do better, production was increased by 11% what this has to do with "And the reason was the worst possible: racism. I want to see the white farmers back to business, especially the ones in Orange and Transvaal, pushing the SA farming exports to the 30 billion dollar mark, at least. Meanwhile, I'll be skeptical." im not sure?

"The performance of South African agriculture, a sector that has command over relatively poor natural resources, is strongly influenced by weather occurrences. Historically, there has been a severe country-
wide drought in at least one year of each of the preceding decades (the most severe being in 1966,
between 1982 and 1984, and from 1992 to 1993). The period from 1994 to 2008 is an exception to this
trend, as there has not been a country-wide drought for more than a decade.
The sector is also highly exposed to global markets, as farmers receive few subsidies; international
trade (imports and exports) makes up a large proportion of total production; and trade at the country’s
borders has been substantially liberalized. Farmers’ incomes are therefore highly dependent on movements in the exchange rate and on global economic conditions.
The agricultural sector’s declining share of GDP does not mean that the sector is declining;
it is more an indication that the services sectors are growing faster. Real gross farm income increased from around R25 billion in 1970 to almost R50 billion in 2006 (more than R90 billion in 2008 in nominal terms). This growth took place during a period when the South African
population increased from around 20 million in 1970 to some 47 million people in 2008.
Physical output increased from around 18 million metric tons in 1975 to 28 million metric tons in 2006. However, until the mid-1990s, the growth in physical production was not sufficient to keep pace with population growth, showing a declining physical production per capita until
that time, and a flattening out since. This coincides with democratisation, accompanied by trade liberalisation and internal market deregulation in agriculture, to be discussed later in
this report.

Given that most of South Africa is unsuited to cultivation, it is no surprise that the largest component
of production comes from livestock, with field crop production substantially larger than horticulture
in 1986-1990 but less so in 2001-2006"

http://www.dbsa.org/Research/DPDWorkingpapersdocuments/DPDNo17.pdf if you want to read it.

I'm sure those farms that where once productive and now lying in ruins because of government has affected the overall picture but in general production has increased year on year, exports not so much.

Interesting fact is South Africa draws 25-30% of is natural internal freshwater for agriculture Brazil only 1-3%, in years of drought whose affected most?

Arable land:
SA 1965 : 12 mil hectares 2009 : 14 mil hectares
Brazil 1965:28 mil hectares 2009 : 61 mil hectares

There isn't as much room to increase arable land in SA like there is in Brazil.

So with land and water a restrictions in SA stop your comments revolving around that one aspect.

Are farmers in Brazil subsidized?

gregbb

April 12th, 2012, 01:47 AM

gregbb, are you Zulu?

No Suns, white South African.

Yuri S Andrade

April 12th, 2012, 03:33 AM

^^
I think you're oversimplifying the whole thing. The amount of arable land available is only one part of the equation. I've adressed this and other issues (including the subsidized thing, they are NOT AT ALL) few pages ago:

Anyhow, in 1994, South Africa produced 16 million t of cereals. In 2010, 14.5 million t. Brazil went from 68 million t to 163 million t of grains (cereals+soybeans). My state, Paraná, well-settled for decades, small/mid size properties based, lacking of space (199,000 km², 6 times smaller than SA), went from 14 million t to 33 million t. And like I mentioned before, the country has its own (and serious) problems. Also, the government did/does nothing to help this increase.

As you can, the small state of Paraná managed to double its production while South Africa shrinked. Whereas cities like Londrina, Maringá, Cascavel, etc. post very strong socio-economic numbers (only 10-15% of households under poverty-line against 32% of the national average), Klerksdorp, Pietersburg, Welkom, Witbank, Nelspruit, Newcastle amongst others are dying away.

Another aspect you failed to mention is the killing of 3,000 out of 110,000 Boere, making 70,000 to flee. They literally KILLED farming. Repulsive! The SA government is openly anti-farmers, they don't even try to hide it. That's not disputable.

Right now, Brazilian agricultural exports are 15 times bigger than South African's, from a possible draw or even a South African advantage back in 1994. Or a new trend emerges, or I'll keep my instance as very skeptical about South African prospects in faming industry. To me it's a shame, as I'd love to see the South African hinterland taking full advantage of its farming industry, displaying a huge middle-class, a vibrant retail, erradicating poverty. For that, we need at least to acknowledge the problem.

LADEN

April 12th, 2012, 04:37 AM

obviously the SA government is not anti-farming why would it want to starve it's own people. SA government is trying to revolutionize the farming industry by adding more black, coloured, indian and white farmers to the industry. Klerksdorp, Polokwane, Welkom, Witbank, Mbombela , Newcastle are not dying away.

SUNS 25

April 12th, 2012, 08:03 AM

Yuri S Andrade is an crazy boy. need of a TATA!!

annman

April 12th, 2012, 03:44 PM

^^ But there is major trouble brewing. No agriculture apocalypse, but something sinister is indeed afoot.

annman

April 12th, 2012, 03:47 PM

Free State farmer attacked, set alight
2012-04-12 10:00
www.news24.com

Bloemfontein - A Free State farmer is recovering in a Vereeniging clinic after being attacked and set alight outside his farm gate near Heilbron, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Christo Janse van Rensburg, 36, sustained second and third degree burns when two men threw a petrol bomb through his open bakkie window as he arrived home around 22:00 on Tuesday, Volksblad newspaper reported.

His wife Connie told the newspaper that when her husband jumped out of his car and rolled on the ground, his assailants attacked him with a metal pipe and tried to force him back into the burning vehicle.

When this failed, they tried to stab him, then poured more petrol over him and set him alight.

Van Rensburg stripped and ran 200 metres to his farmhouse for help.

"My husband fought very hard. When I heard him screaming, I switched the lights on and the attackers must have taken fright, because they fled," she said.

- SAPA

Yuri S Andrade

April 12th, 2012, 06:58 PM

^^
Guys, that's beyond me! Really, that's NOT normal. People cannot regard this as normal. It's all about HATE, VIOLENCE and BARBARISM. The pure EVIL. What a disgrace!

I'm sorry, but that's the big story about South African farming industry. Unfortunately. All the rest is all about blablabla, government propaganda, more blablabla, institutionalized racism, etc.

obviously the SA government is not anti-farming why would it want to starve it's own people. SA government is trying to revolutionize the farming industry by adding more black, coloured, indian and white farmers to the industry. Klerksdorp, Polokwane, Welkom, Witbank, Mbombela , Newcastle are not dying away.

Are they trying? So try again because it's not working. 110,000 farmers to 30,000, 3,000 tortured to death. Farming output plunging while the other countries multiplied theirs by three, four, five times. I don't know some of the cities you mentioned, but the ones I've enumarated are getting poor and losing people.

I don't understand why is so important to you to back those failed policies of South African government. Which do you prefer: South Africa or the South African government?

annman

April 13th, 2012, 08:26 AM

The sad sight of Don Steenkamp (15) of Griekwastad, NC at the memorial service... He discovered his entire family murdered in their farm homestead, where assailants shot and killed his sister and parents on Good Friday.

http://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/1869/02842944315a48ca854919a69c201ccd.jpg

I've reiterated time and time again I doubt there's an imminent agricultural apocalypse in South Africa, but this is not good at all. The government is also deafeningly silent on these attacks. They continue to claim, they're part of normal crime, normal theft, normal normal normal...

I'm becoming very concerned this is NOT normal and that the frequency is increasing rapidly. Violence (sometimes even sending a message - case with FS farmer above) and cold-blooded murder with little/nothing stolen is becoming status quo.

I don't think we can deny anymore that SA's commercial farmers north of the Orange are scared sh*tless, many are emigrating, most are no longer investing in capital expansion projects on their farms and the fear seriously hampers productivity, placing SA's food security at risk.

The government REALLY must take their heads out of the sand on this one; however, with the Land Restitution policy up-in-the-air and being used as a political scapegoat and emotive ploy on the electorate, I doubt they'll do or say anything. The constant rhetoric from government is commercial farmers are at fault for a failed redistribution program; this whilst R30billion goes wasted, 90% of all redistributed farms are unproductive failures, govt. fails to logistically support new African farmers (tools/markets/equip/know-how), they scrapped the LRAD and SPLAG redistribution funding programs and the Dept. is in disarray. Yes: definitely the farmers fault! :ohno:

PS. I'm allowed to speak frankly and candidly on this matter, as we are the largest FairTrade project in the world... yes, the world, our empowerment, labour relations and rural-people-development credentials are a given.

LADEN

April 13th, 2012, 03:35 PM

violence is a problem in all of SA.

Yuri S Andrade

April 13th, 2012, 03:48 PM

^^
How nice then! So there's no problem at all! Let's all celebrate! Why don't you tell this to this young guy, or to his family while they were being brutalized, knowing their fate. It's amazing how people are willing to accept those monstrous acts as something normal. That's SICK.

Well, but I understand: one person here in this thread said we couldn't appreciate those crimes as he was not white. Apparently he would only feel empathy to a human being tortured and killed as long as they shared the same skin colour.

P.S. 3,000 farmers (up to 2009) out of 110,000 in 1994 were killed. Thousands were tortured and 70,000 fled in panic. How many people were murdered in South Africa over the same period? How many people abandoned their regular activities over the violence?

JohanSA

April 13th, 2012, 04:07 PM

annman

April 13th, 2012, 04:38 PM

Yeah that's a 182 murders per 100 000 people per year or to give perspective more than 3 times South Africas general population murder rate per year yes its higher than the average murder rate in South Africas townships........

Was actually wondering just that - thanks for clarifying. As, I do not want to seem like I'm highlighting farm-attacks at the cost of not recognising other murders and crimes that affect our entire populous, regardless of race or background. However, as you pointed out, when the murder-rate is 3-times the national norm in one particular sector, one has to worry and worry BIG TIME!

And nobody can tell me that government's hostile rhetoric doesn't help. I agree that saying government and ANCYL are responsible is a tenuous and inconclusive link, so I'm not jumping on the ring-wing AgriForum bandwagon, but government is doing jack-sh*t to help the situation as well. Their silence and denial is a pseudo-condoning of it, no matter how you look at this issue.

It just proves: They want votes above racial harmony, non-violence and a civil SA society. If condemning the attacks and setting up a special task-force means angering land-emotive masses who vote for them, they'll let people die in silence. They're doing the exact same thing with education (and here, more often than not, condemning Black-African children to lifetime joblessness); silence on SADTU to gain votes from a union partner at the cost of learners. So, my anger is not racially focused at all, it's the pure unadulterated hunger for power that is sickening and it's not only killing some Whites Saffers, it's condemning many Black-Saffers to a lifetime of poverty and it's disgusting!

Yuri S Andrade

April 13th, 2012, 05:33 PM

Yeah that's a 182 murders per 100 000 people per year or to give perspective more than 3 times South Africas general population murder rate per year yes its higher than the average murder rate in South Africas townships........

182 considering the initial population. Today, little than a 30,000 were left, meaning a 546/100,000 rate. And if I'm not mistaken, the South African murder rate is just under 40. Thus, the farmers are actually almost 15 times more likely to be killed than the average South African. Comparing to their fellow urban whites, we certainly have a 3 digits difference.

Putting aside the personal tragedies (which is quite hard, at least for me), there's also another element: one of the most peculiar groups of human beings, the Boere, are near the extinction, mostly by death and torture. Formed in the 1830's, by the Afrikaners leaving the Cape for Orange, hinterland Natal and Transvaal, only 20,000 were left from a 80,000-90,000 in 1994. I wouldn't be surprised if they completely vanish by the 2020's.

gregbb

April 14th, 2012, 02:47 AM

http://southafrica-pig.blogspot.com/2012/02/racist-murders-of-white-farmers-in.html

full story and news videos...

“Nine years ago, the SA government dismantled the volunteer-rural defence-force commandos and did not replace them with adequate rural policing…and the farm murders against Afrikaners are 700% higher than against any other farming-community in the rest of the world’ – Henk van de Graaf.

“The farm murdershttp://www.previewshots.com/images/v1.3/t.gif (http://afrikaner-genocide-achives.blogspot.com/2011/03/rural-deaths-names-details-sources_18.html) are not ordinary crimes but fit into the context in which the ANC-regime wants to rid itself of especially its Afrikaner- and other white farmers purely for political reasons. This is in other words, a genocide and a crime against humanity.’

This was the message by the South African Henk van de Graaf, the deputy-chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union. He was addressing the European parliament’s international conference, attended by more than 50 European parliamentarians and other high-level functionaries from Great-Britain, France, Italy, Flanders and Austria.

“The farm-murders are encouraged in a deliberate atmosphere of violence created by the ANC-regime against its (white) farmers. The ANC is constantly telling unproven stories about farm-workers being poorly treated – even though the evidence is always sorely lacking for their claims.
Private-land ownership in SA stood at only 33% of the agricultural land in 2001 – yet ANC leaders constantly scream that ‘whites own 80% of all the land’ … (note: viable farm-land in semi-arid SA has never been more than 6% of its total land-surface (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html)…)

The ANC is also constantly claiming that ‘the whites own 80% of all the land – when in fact the private-farmland ownership only was 33% ten years ago in 2001 – and has been rapidly dropping ever since. Meanwhile the extent of the farm murders indicates that this is a genocide: with the Transvaal Agricultural Union verifying 1,554 murdershttp://www.previewshots.com/images/v1.3/t.gif (http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2009/categories/murder.pdf), this statistic is very understated,” said Mr Van de Graaf.

Thus far in January 2012, a total of 17 Afrikaner people were murdered without any apparent motives – of whom at least six on farms.

Kwazimoto

April 14th, 2012, 08:55 AM

Oops

Kwazimoto

April 14th, 2012, 01:31 PM

I have no doubt that this country's people will always be known as good hearted citizens of world. Not murderers.

Having lived through the most inhumane, degrading system and come out with NOTHING more than peace in mind, I think such a title would be deserved.

The ANC will always be known as a great liberation movement, despite attempts by the media or the minority to paint it otherwise.

There are unscrupulous people in our broken society, as there are in any other. Those people are not black south africa, they are not ANC! The world know's that(smart people atleast). So continued attempts to try and make it seem as though anyone in this country is committing genocide, will surely fail.

Brandon Huntley(?) will not be the last to try and fail to drag our coutry and people down.

annman

April 14th, 2012, 02:14 PM

^^ The problem is, one side is shouting genocide, which is far-fetched and the other side, is claiming NOTHING is wrong. It simply cannot continue in this way, nobody can deny that.

But, on the ANC being seen as the liberation organisation of great selflessness, yes, that is indisputable: The ANC of yore was moral, upstanding, against ANY oppression against anyone and had a sound conscience. On the ANC being seen as the government of great selflessness, moral, upstanding, with a sound conscience...

*Facepalm*

annman

April 14th, 2012, 02:19 PM

^^ The problem is, one side is shouting genocide, which is far-fetched and the other side, is claiming NOTHING is wrong. It simply cannot continue in this way, nobody can deny that. Whites claiming refugee status overseas are wrong and the ruling party claiming what's happening is normal is wrong.

But, on the ANC being seen as the liberation organisation of great selflessness, yes, that is indisputable: The ANC of yore was moral, upstanding, against ANY oppression against anyone and had a sound conscience. On the ANC being seen as the government of great selflessness, moral, upstanding, with a sound conscience...

*Facepalm*

On media: The ANC are amateurs, unaccustomed to criticism and have skin as thick as cling-wrap; not used to governing in a free society. Try dealing with the rest of the press in the free world, our's is tame in comparison. NEWS FLASH; DA is often on the receiving-end of vicious press in the Western Cape - The highest trees catch the most wind - you want to govern in a democracy, deal with it!

gregbb

April 15th, 2012, 12:34 AM

"We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road running through the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm.
Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his hand behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us." That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind.
And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another on and upward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honorable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."
In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul found its way back from the prisoners existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered...
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, and the thoughts of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I still would have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of that image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."

gregbb

April 15th, 2012, 12:53 AM

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/frankl/frankl.html

forgot link.

"I have no doubt that this country's people will always be known as good hearted citizens of world. Not murderers. "

Agreed. but statistics show otherwise. All Ive dealt with are as you say, but theres a group that doesn't seem to want that though.

"Having lived through the most inhumane, degrading system and come out with NOTHING more than peace in mind, I think such a title would be deserved. "

What title? Murderers etc?

Not arguing about the inhumane / degrading system but if a title of murders is your best then not sure what you mean!!.

"The ANC will always be known as a great liberation movement,..." please don't forget the other parties, it wasnt only the ANC that liberated SA but then thats been brought up before.

"There are unscrupulous people in our broken society, as there are in any other. Those people are not black south africa, they are not ANC!"

So if im not a 'Black South African ANC Member' im unscrupulous?

Yuri S Andrade

April 15th, 2012, 01:58 AM

To me it's very disturbing to find out there are people, even here in this very forum, that are so racist that can't even appreciate the extension of such despicable acts. Are you that insentive to human suffering? Probably the believe South Africa will "kill" its way to development. And it's not like there are few examples out there in the African continent. We all know how these stories always end...

But think of pratical solutions, as the ANC government didn't and will not do anything to stop this (they clearly think the Boere are better abroad or dead), why don't the farmers fight back? Don't they have guns to defend themselves from those beasts?

SUNS 25

April 15th, 2012, 03:01 AM

Dumb!!

gregbb

April 15th, 2012, 09:48 AM

Huge projects promised for KZN
10:09 (GMT+2), Mon, 26 March 2012

By Robyn Joubert

KwaZulu-Natal stands to benefit from a number of massive infrastructure projects. Dr Zweli Mkhize, the premier of the province, gave a round-up of developments in his State of the Province address on 21 February 2012.

During a time of global economic turbulence, we need to appreciate the economic stability of South Africa. Prudent planning and foresight ensured that SA emerged relatively unscathed, and KwaZulu-Natal continues to register remarkable performances. A massive infrastructure programme will be rolled out to help our country defeat the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The total investment going to all the districts in KZN ranges between R3 billion and R8 billion for each district, except Uthukela, Uthungulu and eThekwini which will receive more than R20 billion because of special projects in those areas.

Water
The Department of Water Affairs has embarked on a massive water supply programme, with R18 billion earmarked to raise the wall of the Hazelmere Dam, complete the construction of Spring Grove Dam in Mooi River, and to augment the Umngeni River catchment.

Other major water projects include Ngagane water treatment works and transfer; Jozini-Ingwavuma bulk water supply; Mandlakazi water scheme; Msinga and Vant’s Drift bulk; and Mhlabashane Dam. Eskom is completing the R22 billion Ingula pump station in the Drakensberg which will come onstream by 2014, providing 1 300MW of renewable energy into the national grid. This would be KZN’s contribution to the 20 000MW of clean energy envisaged in the National Development Plan.

Upgrading Ports
Around R80 billion will be invested by Transnet in the refurbishment of the ports in the next seven years. At Durban port, the expansion will focus on increasing the port handling facility by more than 50% and strengthening the status of the port as the largest container port on the African continent.

Some funds will be dedicated to planning in the early phases in the implementation of the Durban Dugout Port. Some aspects of this project will only be completed in the next 50 years. It is a visionary project that will have a strong multiplier effect on the entire economy of our country. It forms part of the Durban-Free State-Gauteng corridor, incorporating the inland container terminal and generating economic growth in associated provinces.

A large portion of the investment will focus on refurbishing Richards Bay Port to increase the capacity of Africa’s largest coal terminal in preparation for coal mines expected to open in Limpopo. Over 75% of the economy is generated through Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Richards Bay. This is why we are paying particular attention to harbours and road, rail and air transport since their efficiency constitutes our competitive edge.

Dube TradePort has fully completed the first phase of implementation and investment and will be moving into the second phase. The long-term strategic objective of the project is to establish an aerotropolis north of Durban stretching from Umhlanga to Ballito. This new ‘city within a city’ will create a world-class environment to attract new sectors and value chains in the KZN economy. This requires investment in appropriate strategic infrastructure and facilities, to be initiated within the next 12 months.

Economic Zones
There is a need to reconfigure the structure of the economy in the province and redefine centres of growth and corridors of development. The MEC for Economic Development and Tourism has been mandated to pilot the creation of Special Economic Zones.

Clusters include the Ilembe Cluster to revive Isithebe by focusing on renewable energy (wind, solar and biofuel); the uMgungundlovu cluster to revive the leather industry; the agro-processing cluster in Zululand; and a timber and wood products cluster in Sisonke.

Agrarian Revolution
The agricultural potential of KZN, its diverse topography, climate and soil virtually make this province a ‘world-in-one’, yet its potential is under-utilised. SA continues to be a net importer of poultry meat, equating to 4,3 million birds per week, each year. If SA was to substitute 50% of current imports with local production, more than 10 000 jobs could be created. The same can be said for dairy, eggs, dry beans, vegetables and cut flowers.

We have the potential and expertise to produce more to meet local demand and to export to all markets, focusing more on Africa, BRICS partners and the Middle East. The MEC has been directed to develop a strategy and implementation plan, forming partnerships with existing exporters and South African retailers. Small and emerging farmers will be linked with existing established exporters.

Capacity building through technical training, entrepreneurial development, production and marketing skills will be an important component of the strategy. A commodity think-tank in the form of the industry cluster will be established to drive the strategy.

Communal farmers in KZN possess 55% of the total beef and 74% of goat stock. In October 2010, Cabinet approved the KZN Livestock Strategy which envisages an increase in production by communal farmers from the current 18 000t of red meat per annum to 75 000t by 2017/18. That is an additional income of R2,5 billion per annum. Commercial farmers will increase production from 45 000t/annum to 60 000t/annum over the same period.

Mechanisation
To push back the frontiers of poverty, the small farmer mechanisation programme has been boosted, with more than 300 tractors already distributed to all districts. An additional 200 tractors will be bought this financial year. This will increase the land cultivated this year from 23 331ha to a targeted 36 000ha next year. Investors wish to partner with us and farmers in a variety of agricultural ventures.

These projects include chicory production in Weenen under irrigation in partnership with Nestlé; beef and dairy production and the Midlands Ultra High Temperature treatment of milk initiative, dry bean and pulse/lentil production in Jikijela and Tugela Estates; Masibambisane Agricultural Project and Inkandla Smart Centre Development Project; fresh vegetable and fruit production in the Midlands Vegetable Cluster (Craigieburn, Muden and Weenen) and Makhathini Irrigation Scheme (15 000ha under irrigation); and AgriParks and cut flower production in Msunduzi, eThekwini, Ugu and iLembe.

Contact Dr Zweli Mkhize on 033 341 3329 or email bhekin@premier.kzntl.gov.za
The views expressed in our weekly opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Farmer’s Weekly.

Issue date: 16 March 2012

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=16512&h=Huge-projects-promised-for-KZN

gregbb

April 15th, 2012, 09:49 AM

2012 Budget: What’s in it for agriculture?
08:00 (GMT+2), Sat, 03 March 2012

By Denene Erasmus

“We are at the beginning of an interesting new phase in the South African economy,” said finance minister Pravin Gordhan during his 2012 budget speech in parliament.

This budget will see consolidated government expenditure rise by 8,8% to reach R1,1 trillion. The total amount appropriated to the agriculture, rural development and land reform cluster will increase by 10,6% to around R22 billion and Land Bank will receive a generous R1 billion from Treasury to complete its recapitilisation.

INFRASTRUCTURE
Gordhan said that expansion in infrastructure investment is one of the main priorities of the 2012 budget and special emphasis will be given to improving competitiveness in industry, investment in technology, encouragement of enterprise development and support for agriculture.

Over the medium-term expenditure framework (three-year period), Treasury budgeted for infrastructure plans amounting to R845 billion. At a parliamentary press conference, Gordhan said there is a need to find different ways to enhance growth in the country.

To this end, Treasury introduced the competiveness package worth R9,5 billion which will be implemented over the next three years, mostly by the Department of Trade and Industry. As part of this package, R150 million will be spent on improving provincial and rural agricultural colleges. The National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) will receive R400 million to boost support to smallholder farmers and to conduct research on animal vaccines.

AGRICULTURE
“We need to take advantage of rising demand for agricultural and manufacturing goods,” said Gordhan. This urgency is evidenced by the additional allocation of R1,9 billion to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to improve agricultural support services.

According to the 2012 Estimates of National Expenditure, spending by the agricultural department increased from R3,6 billion in 2008/09 to R5 billion in 2011/12, at an average annual rate of 11,7% and is projected to increase to R6,3 billion over the medium term (three-year period), at an average annual rate of 8,4%.

The total allocated budget for 2012/2013 will amount to around R5,8 billion. The spending focus over the medium term will include making transfer payments of R2,9 billion to the Agricultural Research Council, R99,2 million to the NAMC and conditional provincial grants for the government support programme LandCare, and the Ilima/Letsema Project to the value of R6,4 billion. The department will also receive additional annual allocations of R554 million, R507 million and R610 million over the next three years to improve conditions of service, implement the disasters and flood damaged infrastructure component of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme, as well as an allocation for agricultural colleges and NAMC for the economic competitiveness and support package.

Rural development and land reform was allocated roughly R8,9 billion. According to the 2012 Estimates of National Expenditure, the implementation of the comprehensive rural development programme, land reform, and the settlement of restitution claims will remain the department’s core spending focus over the medium term. Therefore spending increased from R6,7 billion in 2008/09 to R8,1 billion in 2011/12, at an average annual rate of 6,9%, due to the need to settle 4 000 outstanding restitution claims.

Over the next three years, expenditure is expected to increase to R9,9 billion due to the addition of 5 000 recruits under the national rural youth services corps programme, and the need to recapitalise 525 farms.

NO INCREASE IN WINE EXCISE TARGET
The excise duties on tobacco and alcohol products will increase, but the excise target for wine will not be adjusted. This is good news for wine farmers who made an urgent appeal to Treasury in 2011 to not increase the wine excise target following an announcement in the 2011 budget that the appropriateness of these benchmark tax burdens (23%, 33%, and 43% respectively of the weighed average retail selling price of wine, clear beer and spirits) would be reviewed and possibly increased to complement broader efforts to reduce alcohol abuse.

In its appeal to Treasury, the wine industry argued that price increases were not a silver bullet to solve alcohol abuse and that excise increases were putting pressure on the profitability of grape producers. It is now proposed to retain the current benchmark for wine but to increase the targeted benchmark tax burdens for beer and spirits to 35% and 48% respectively over the next two years. For the 2012/2013 budget period, the excise on wine will increase by 8% to about R2,50. –
Gauteng toll discount
Minister Gordhan announced a special appropriation of R5,8 billion to reduce the R20 billion debt to be repaid through the toll system. This will make for a bigger discount for regular road users. Cabinet further approved tariff reductions across the board for vehicles with e-tags from 66c/ km to 30c/km for light vehicles and 75c/km and R1,51/ km respectively for articulated and non-articulated trucks. Taxis and other public transport operators will be exempt from toll fees and maximum toll fees per month for frequent users will amount to R550.

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/news.aspx?id=15425&h=2012-Budget:-What%E2%80%99s-in-it-for-agriculture

gregbb

April 15th, 2012, 03:14 PM

Wild rumours follow farm killing

2012-04-15 10:01

Jacques Steenkamp, Rapport

Johannesburg – A week ago, the Steenkamp family attended Good Friday Holy Communion in Griekwastad. A few hours later Deon Steenkamp, 44, his wife Christelle, 43, and daughter Marthella, 14, were shot and killed in their house on the farm Naauwhoek.

Don, 15, the only surviving member of the family, told police that he was working in an outside barn at the time of the shooting and after hearing the shots, had gone up to the house to find he bodies of the rest of his family.

A member of the congregation told Rapport (http://www.rapport.co.za/) that Don had apparently had a fight with his father at the church about the fact that he wanted to farm and not go to school.

Over the last week, wild rumours circulated about the family tragedy. Questions were asked about why thousands of rands that were in an open safe, were not taken from the house and nothing else was missing either.

It was also stated that the incident looked less like a farm murder and more like some kind of family tragedy.

Legal counsel was apparently appointed for Don to protect him against “wild rumours”.

According to the latest rumours, the shooter may be one of the deceased.

A retired police detective told reporters that Don’s version of events did not make sense.

Police teams have been back to the farm for additional forensic investigations.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Wild-rumours-follow-farm-killing-20120415

Yuri S Andrade

April 15th, 2012, 06:20 PM

^^
The lack of torture indeed is quite unusual for that type of crime. They usually be very "creative" in this regard.

Let's wait the investigations. As apparently that's not a farm attack, it might be actually solved.

rubbercenter

April 17th, 2012, 02:54 PM

not sure where else to put this but fits into all the talk of violence against farmers...

“If you work with violent people, you can be sure at one point in their biography, they stopped having the ability to feel empathy for other people,”...

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679670/neo-nazi-rehab-how-do-you-change-the-mind-of-an-extremist

South Africa needs an approach like this...desperately...

Marsupalami

April 19th, 2012, 09:14 AM

German group invests in SA agriculture
More Sharing ServicesShare | Share on emailShare on favoritesShare on printShare on twitter 18 April 2012

One of Europe's largest development finance institutions, the German Investment Corporation (DEG), has acquired a 10% shareholding in South African agriculture supply chain company Farmsecure Holdings.

Farmsecure, which operates in livestock, field and horticultural crops, is a key player in South Africa's supply chain industry.

A subsidiary of the German development finance bank KfW, DEG first became involved with Farmsecure through its "AgroAfrica" programme, which pledged €100-million to the development of agriculture in developing countries on its establishment in May 2009.

Through "AgroAfrica", DEG provided working capital for Farmsecure's primary agricultural activities.

"Farmsecure has always valued DEG as an international financing partner and has developed a strong and stable relationship with DEG," the company said in a statement this week. "During the past 18 months, the relationship has led to DEG now also becoming a shareholder in the Farmsecure Group."

Farmsecure CEO Jerome Yazbek said Farmsecure had experienced exceptional growth, both organically and by acquisition, and therefore thought it prudent to further strengthen its balance sheet through this equity injection.

"However, we were not only looking for any investor, but for one who shares our vision," Yazbek said. "We are delighted that we can now welcome DEG, one of the largest European development finance institutions, not only as a financing partner, but as a shareholder in our group."

Read more: http://www.southafrica.info/business/investing/farmsecure-180412.htm#ixzz1sT2TSbkG

gregbb

May 10th, 2012, 11:12 PM

Decades on – still paying the Cubans
14:30 (GMT+2), Wed, 09 May 2012

By Lindi van Rooyen

South Africa’s grant of R40 million to Cuban farmers for seed purchases is baffling when local farmers’ requests for subsidies have been denied. Lindi van Rooyen asks when the Cuban ‘struggle’ debt will finally be paid.

South Africa’s pledge to give R40 million to Cuban farmers for seed purchases is surprising, considering how long SA’s farmers have pleaded for help from this government – to no avail. The R40 million forms part of a larger R350 million assistance package offered to Cuba by President Jacob Zuma in late 2010.

The package comprises two direct grants and a repayable loan, the latter of which has been provided at a “lowish interest rate”, said trade and industry minister Rob Davies. A condition of the R40 million grant is that R5 million (12,5%) be used to buy SA seed. This is short-sighted, considering that SA is more than capable of providing R40 million worth of seed to Cuba. The positive spin-offs for the agricultural industry would be numerous if such an order were to be placed locally. Surely it would not be too much to expect the Cubans to buy their seed here under the circumstances.

Politics above food security
Cuban agriculture is far from failing and less in need of external funding than most African countries. Weaknesses in the African agricultural sector have a greater effect on SA’s economy than any perceived needs, agricultural or otherwise, in Cuba.
According to Cuba’s agricultural department that country is a world leader in the production of biofertilisers and is a large organic food producer.

Urban food gardens have ensured that 90% of fresh produce consumed in Cuban cities originates from urban centres. Cuba is a globally important tobacco grower and a top grapefruit producer. Hardly a country that needs an African subsidy to ensure food security. So why the sizeable donation? The answer has little to do with humanity, but much to do with political payback for help, mainly of a military nature, provided by Cuba to the ANC during the years of the armed struggle.

Davies said this country was “indebted to Cuba for the sacrifices it had made during the apartheid years, especially in Angola”.
During the Angolan war in the 1970s and 1980s Cuba was instrumental in SADF troop withdrawal from Angola, and Namibia’s consequent independence. In a previous display of gratitude, SA wrote off Cuban debt to the tune of R1 billion in 2010. The importance of repaying political debts is debatable, more so when the price is too high.

Prof Pierre du Toit, political scientist at the University of Stellenbosch, said he could not see how SA would benefit from possible trade-offs. “This political payback forms part of a long tradition in the ANC of indebtedness to friends who helped them during the struggle. “The unfairness of the issue lies in the fact that SA’s emerging farmers should have first claim on revenue from SA’s tax base, not Cuban farmers.”

Emerging farmers left behind
A R40 million subsidy for SA agriculture could have an enormous impact, especially on small-scale farms where seed technology is unaffordable. Mike Mlengana, president of the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa, described the donation as “unacceptable”.

“Struggling emerging farmers can’t afford seed and fertiliser. R40 million would go a long way to train emerging farmers to be commercial or semi-commercial. We can buy land with that money or erect processing plants. This money could change the face of small farmers in SA,” he added. Government likes to point a finger at commercial farmers for not helping small-scale farmers.

How many fingers are pointing back at government, especially when it is willing to subsidise seed purchases for Cubans, but not for its own farmers? When will this debt be paid and investment in the future of our country begin? Dawie Maree, an economist at Agri SA pointed out that SA’s emerging farmers needed the R40 million far more than Cuban farmers. “Besides the money issue, the principle of giving subsidies to another country’s farmers before our own is disturbing,” says Maree. On these uneven playing fields, a R40 million subsidy to a country across the Atlantic can only leave a bitter taste.

The views expressed in our weekly opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Farmer’s Weekly.

Issue date: 27 April 2012

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=21567&h=Decades-on-%E2%80%93-still-paying-the-Cubans

gregbb

May 24th, 2012, 04:09 AM

World Agriculture Report
Sub-Saharan African Agriculture: A Guide To
What There Is & Who Owns It.

http://www.hardmanandco.com/Research/World.pdf

gregbb

May 24th, 2012, 05:04 AM

SA Apple exporters ditch EU for Asia, Middle East markets

23 May 2012 13:36Submit a comment (http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/358/75676.html#comments)BizLike (http://www.bizcommunity.com/ContentLike.aspx?ct=1&ci=75676&ru=http%3a%2f%2fwww.bizcommunity.com%2fArticle.aspx%3fl%3d196%26c%3d358%26i%3d75676&dislike=0&fa=19)
According to estimates in a US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Global Agricultural Information Network report released last week, South African apple exports are expected to show a 7% year-on-year increase this season to 340,000 metric tons with expanded markets in the Middle East and Asia.
Exporters have shown a visible shift away from traditional markets to Asia and the Middle East which have less stringent non-tariff measures compared with the EU - Fresh Fruit Portal reports.

The 2011 industry tree census shows 21,920 hectares were planted in South Africa - a 2% year-on-year rise. Free trade areas with no import tariffs and duties have been the major drivers for this, along with South African investments in supermarkets in African countries.

Popular apple varieties include Golden Delicious (5,359 ha), Granny Smith (4,687 ha), Royal Gala (3,284 ha), Topred (3,047 ha), Pink Lady (2,043 ha) and Fuji (1,547 ha). According to Fresh Fruit Portal, the cost of establishing a hectare of apples has increased to R192 060 per hectare. Rising plant material costs for rootstock and seedlings plus increased electricity prices remain a concern for growers.

Read the full article (http://www.freshfruitportal.com/2012/05/23/sa-apple-exporters-focus-on-new-markets-outside-e-u/) on www.freshfruitportal.com (http://www.freshfruitportal.com).

gregbb

May 24th, 2012, 05:15 AM

Focus on willing-buyer, willing-seller
08:30 (GMT+2), Wed, 23 May 2012

By Denene Erasmus

The willing-buyer, willing-seller principle was much debated when the minister of Rural Development and Land Reform presented his budget speech.

Emotions ran high during a recent debate in parliament on the willing-seller, willing-buyer approach, with MPs presenting strong arguments on how land reform could be speeded up. The debate took place after the minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, presented his budget speech, although the minister himself made scant reference to the willing-buyer, willing-seller principle.

Addressing the media ahead of his budget vote, Nkwinti said government needed to be involved in setting fair prices because the market alone would overprice the land. When land was sold by a farmer to the state, it was estate agents, land valuators and others that benefited from inflated land prices rather than farmers themselves, he said.

Nkwinti added that the state was a compelled buyer rather than a willing buyer, making it vulnerable to exploitation. During the debate, Athol Trollip, DA MP and a member of parliament’s Portfolio Committee for Rural Development and Land Reform, argued that the state was not a “compelled buyer”.

“Rather, the blame for your department’s glacial progress in finalising the restitution process and driving meaningful land reform lies fairly and squarely at you and your department’s door,” he said. Trollip accused the officials of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) of “ineptitude, carelessness, lack of batho pele (putting other people first), lack of professionalism, integrity and blatant dishonesty”.

He argued that it was not the constitutional provision of “willing buyer and willing seller” that constrained land reform success, but the fact that the department was “responsible for contriving to create artificial land value inflation that stifles your ability to acquire land”. Siding with the minister, the chairperson of the portfolio committee, ANC MP Stone Sizane, bemoaned the inefficiencies of the current land reform model, saying that government needed to “change direction on the land question if redistribution is to be speeded up”.

He strongly criticised current legislation that governed land reform, restitution and land ownership, arguing that the law “stipulates that land that was taken by force can only be available to those former owners through cash”. “However, the same law does not require those who own the land to make some form of concession of reparation to those whose dignity and means of well-being has been deprived,” he added.

Inkosi Cebekhulu, IFP MP and also a member of the portfolio committee, said that the pace of land reform was very slow and the “willing-buyer, willing-seller model has not proved to be the most efficient model”. But he added that land claimants were being let down by the “current state of chaos in the land claims office” and called on the minister to investigate allegations of maladministration that was causing huge delays in the claims process.

Green Paper
During the media briefing, Nkwinti said that the six working groups set up last year to study proposals on the Green Paper on Land Reform had been making progress. When proposals were formulated, these would be put forward to Cabinet for approval. He added that the proposals on communal land tenure would take the longest to reach consensus on, as they were the most difficult, while the working group looking at the proposal to set up a Land Valuer-General was moving along quickly.

Trollip criticised “the department’s intention to draft relevant legislation on a piecemeal basis as and when it is ready”. He said this would allow “conveniently selective implementation of the Green Paper at the ANC’s discretion”. But Agri SA deputy president Theo de Jager, who attended the debate, told Farmer’s Weekly that the agricultural sector supported the way in which the minister was driving interaction in the Green Paper process.

“We are part of the discussions. What more could we ask for?” asked De Jager. He said that Agri SA agreed with the minister that the various proposals should be put forward to Cabinet for approval once consensus was reached in the working groups.

Expenditure plan
The DRDLR was allocated about R8,9 billion for 2012/2013. According to the 2012 estimates of national expenditure, the implementation of the comprehensive rural development programme, land reform, and the settlement of restitution claims, would form the bulk of spending. Nkwinti indicated that approximately R2,7 billion would be spent on land reform to provide access to 320 000ha of agricultural land, while about R1,2 billion would be spent on the recapitalisation of 595 unproductive farms of land reform beneficiaries.

http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/news.aspx?id=22024&h=Focusonwilling-buyer,willing-seller

musiccity

May 24th, 2012, 06:59 AM

I read through all 7 pages of this thread and these discussions have been extremely interesting. There really is no easy solution to the South African farm violence. The only thing I can say is the SA gov't needs to set up more Agriculture Institutions to allow more South Africans to be educated in agriculture. Many Boer farmers are elderly and the gov't should provide a nice retirement plan for them. When the elderly Boer farmers retire, their farm should be redistributed to educated Black South Africans. Also, all farms that under perform should be redistributed to agriculturally educated Black South Africans.

I'm actually American, I know nothing about agriculture, and my solution probably isn't that good but I think that might solve a few problems.

rubbercenter

May 24th, 2012, 03:02 PM

SA policies should encourage investment in agriculture

By: jolanda odendaal
24th May 2012

South African policies on agriculture and farming need to be addressed to ensure sustainable farming, investment and security of food supply in the future, said agriculture union TAU SA GM Bennie van Zyl on Thursday.

The government’s approach towards farming created uncertainty in the agriculture sector, which could result in the country running out of food, he said at an Agribusiness Indaba, pointing to, for example, land ownership.

Van Zyl said many skilled farmers were leaving the industry or country, reducing commercial farming skills and output, as concerns grew over land ownership.

It was no longer about whether the farmer was black or white, it was about whether the farmer successfully used the land for food production, he stressed, adding that the question was what farmers were doing with the 122-million hectares of agricultural land in South Africa.

To date, the government has acquired about 5.9-million hectares of agricultural land in the country, with the intention of distributing it among previously disadvantaged individuals for commercial farming. The government aimed for about 30% black-owned farms by 2014, but Forbes managing editor Chris Bishop said that only a 6% distribution had been achieved.

Industrial Development Corporation head of agroindustries Rian Coetzee said that potential or emerging farmers required significant support in terms of access to land, finance, skills and markets.

Agrifica director Dr Lawrence McCrystal agreed, stating that contributions and investments in capital were required, as well as offtake agreements and support from surrounding farmers. Further, in addition to training, a potential farmer needed the "heart" for farming.

McCrystal pointed out that there were many inhibitors to investments and successful commercial farming, which included the threat of nationalisation and the country's inflexible labour laws. Further, the country required policies and practices that supported and encouraged smaller farmers.

Coetzee agreed, adding that the country and industry needed to encourage and increase the confidence of the smaller players to invest and grow, as investment was only seen from the larger commercial producers.

Further, he added that a number of emerging economies were interested in investing in African agriculture, but Van Zyl was adamant policies should be addressed to sustain investments.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-policies-should-encourage-investment-in-agriculture-2012-05-24

Kokoity

May 25th, 2012, 05:26 PM

Visit this page Boers in Georgia | ბურები (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1304863) and pass a comment ;)

Yuri S Andrade

May 25th, 2012, 05:35 PM

^^
That's really embarrassing. Very good for Georgia though.

Kokoity

May 25th, 2012, 07:13 PM

^^
That's really embarrassing. Very good for Georgia though.

Why do you think it´s embarrassing??? I agree it´s very good for Georgia and every Boer is welcome.

gregbb

June 24th, 2012, 11:52 PM

R1bn boost for South African farming

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22 June 2012

South Africa's emerging and commercial farmers will benefit from financial assistance after the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved a R1-billion line of credit to the Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa on Wednesday.

The support will be also used to assist agricultural co-operatives and agri-related businesses; it will help mobilise financial resources, ultimately contributing to job creation and income generation.

"The line of credit from the AfDB will be dedicated to the agricultural sector which is generally labour-intensive," said the AfDB's private sector and micro-finance department director, Tim Turner, in a statement.

"Its benefits are expected to emphasise low-skilled workers, especially with the Land Bank's focus on emerging farmers."

Turner said that the projected 2 700 loans to be given to emerging farmers are expected to generate some 14 000 jobs, while the financing to the commercial farmers, cooperatives and agri-related businesses is expected to create at least 2 000 jobs.

"This will have multiple positive inclusive growth effects by targeting underserved populations such as rural communities, women and black emerging farmers," he added.

The credit also includes a technical assistance component for capacity building at Land Bank and will enable the government to support, promote and facilitate the development and transformation of the agricultural sector in South Africa.

As one of the most employment intensive sectors of the South African economy, agriculture's potential impact on empowerment and poverty relief is much larger than its actual weight in the economy suggests.

While the primary agricultural sector contributes about 3% to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), it represents about 7% of formal employment. If the entire value chain of agriculture is taken into account, its contribution to GDP actually reaches 12%.

SAinfo reporter

Read more: http://www.southafrica.info/business/economy/development/farming-220612.htm#ixzz1ykYpXlzO

rubbercenter

June 25th, 2012, 02:42 PM

China top target as SA farmers look east

South African maize and citrus farmers are setting their sights on Asia as they grapple with increasing competition in Africa and falling demand in Europe.

With promises of booming demand in the East and low shipping costs, South African farmers are vigorously courting Asian buyers, focusing on China.

"We have met with some Chinese buyers. They are already in South Africa looking at opportunities to buy South African maize," Grain SA chief executive Jannie de Villiers said.

China's 2012/13 corn (maize) imports are forecast at seven-million tons, a US Department of Agriculture June supply-demand report showed.

South Africa's grain trade is market-driven and producers face few government restrictions. The government's May forecast for the 2012 crop was 11.056-million tons, against a 10.36-million tons harvest in 2011.

Traditionally South African maize farmers have exported surpluses to destinations within Africa, mainly to neighbouring countries, while fresh-fruit producers have cultivated close ties with buyers in Europe.

However, a series of bumper maize harvests in Zambia and Malawi have trimmed South Africa's market share in the region. Another problem has been that some African countries remain wary of genetically modified crops, which account for most of South Africa's maize production.

"It is not a question of moving away from the traditional markets, but securing more alternative markets," Piet Faure, a soft-commodities analyst at CJS Securities, said.

Asian markets are attractive because of their proximity to South African ports and the reduced delivery times compared with the European Union, United States and South America, Faure said.

In the past year, Africa's largest maize producer has sold to countries such as South Korea, Kuwait, Japan, Iran and Taiwan after a vigorous marketing campaign in Asian markets.

"The trade balance in the East is beginning to favour South Africa," Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said.

Citrus producers, too, are looking to Asia amid concerns of slowing demand in Europe as the region's debt woes rumble on.

South Africa is the world's second-largest citrus supplier after Spain, exporting 2.5-million tons of fresh fruit annually, of which about 70% is destined for Europe.

The National Agricultural Marketing Council and the Department of Agriculture have now identified China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Singapore and Malaysia as attractive new markets for South Africa, a report in May said.

The report added that, though Europe remained a vital outlet, increasing output in southern hemisphere countries, rising export costs and stagnating consumption in the EU posed challenges to citrus producers.

The producers have indicated that they would be comfortable in the long term with shipping only 40% to 50% of fruit export volumes into Europe.

South Africa announced recently that it has started exporting fresh fruit to Thailand after 14 years of talks between the countries.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/china-top-target-as-sa-farmers-look-east-2012-06-25

Frantic777

June 27th, 2012, 03:15 PM

Im not sure why there is such a drive in the ANC nowadays to give farmland back to Africans. Wealth in the modern world is no longer equal to the amount of rural land you own (as it was maybe in the medieval ages). Wealth is rather attained by the educated and the knowledgeable. Funny that the ANC is spending very large amounts of money buying up old farmland and not rather spending it on bursaries for previously disadvanteged youngsters to attend university :nuts:

annman

June 27th, 2012, 03:31 PM

^^ Land is a scapegoat issue, that's why. I've said in other fora:

To attach all aspirations of 21st Century Africans to agrarianism is almost the biggest insult. To dismiss urban-Africans' dreams of having careers and successful modern lifestyles is insulting the intelligence and aspirations of the very people they claim to want to help. It is erroneous to assume today's youth quest for a patch of mielies and a few cows. The logic is fatally flawed.

Land no longer equals wealth, that is a tribalist or 19th Century concept. Agri-business, plus huge economy of scale, plus modern farming methods, plus business acumen, plus access to markets, plus secondary agri-processing, plus EVENTUALLY land, equals wealth.

Not having land doesn't make most people poor. Having exorbitant prices and high-inflation at the supermarket has far-reaching consequences. Food security and low basic food prices is the most important thing after creating job-intensive economic growth. We are an industrialised nation, not an agrarian one, pursuing a subsistence agrarian policy and punishing industrialists is bound to leave us jobless and without food. A toxic combination for mass-starvation and eventual death.

Awesome.e

June 28th, 2012, 11:36 AM

Those people in favour of grabbing land without compensation is retarded to the max. They dont learn from Zimbabwe hey? There's already so many farm lands that has been sold to Africans and they are just left there without any production. Why don't the government just transfer those land to someone that knows how to farm? Food prices will sky rocket if this land reform issue is not solved properly. Food prices are already increasing in a very dangerous level and if land reform is not solved properly, we will be the next Zim.

rubbercenter

June 30th, 2012, 03:28 PM

ANCYL welcomes ANC policy resolutions
2012-06-30 15:08

Johannesburg - Policy decisions around land reform at the ANC's policy conference were welcomed by the party's youth league on Saturday.

"We welcome the policy conference resolution...to expropriate land without compensation where land has been acquired through unlawful means," said ANCYL spokesperson Khusela Sangoni-Khawe in a statement.

She added that the unlawful acquisition of land was a "key characteristic of our violent history of dispossession".

Leading up to the conference there had been many calls to scrap the willing buyer, willing seller approach to land redistribution.

On Friday, President Jacob Zuma, who is also ANC president, affirmed that this approach would be replaced but was vague on the details.

"Conference also affirmed the proposal to replace willing buyer willing seller with the 'Just and equitable' principle in the Constitution, immediately where the state is acquiring land for land reform purposes,” he said.

State intervention

Land commission member Tina Joemat-Petterson told the media this would not entail any change to the Constitution; adding that Section 25 of the constitution allowed the government to expropriate land with compensation.

"I don't think we should create pandemonium or insecurity...All we need to do is implement the Constitution."

Sangoni-Khawe also said that the league welcomed policy conference resolutions around state intervention.

"We welcome... the resolution for the nationalisation of mines and other strategic sectors of the economy."

On Friday, Zuma said the conference had agreed that state intervention in the minerals and mining sector was "urgently required", but he made no mention of a proposed super tax on mining.

"At the forefront of this intervention should be strengthening of the recently created state mining company by consolidating state mining assets into a single institution."

Economic growth

National executive committee member Enoch Godongwana on Friday said the ANC had decided not to pursue the nationalisation of mines. He said it was discussed at the party's four-day policy conference but it was not part of the document on the mining sector.

Sangoni-Khawe said the league was in agreement with the ANC about creating economic growth that benefited more people.

"The ANC must take bold, transformative and decisive decisions to bring out this reality."

Recommendations made at the policy conference would be taken back to ANC branches for further discussion and input.

They would be presented at the ANC's national conference in Mangaung in December where they would be adopted as official policy.

This would then inform government legislation and policies.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/ANCYL-welcomes-ANC-policy-resolutions-20120630

rubbercenter

July 1st, 2012, 08:02 AM

Appropriate land with compensation: Zuma

The state must be allowed to appropriate land with compensation, as set out in Constitution, President Jacob Zuma said.

"Land reform must represent a radical... break from the past without significantly disrupting agriculture production and food security," Zuma told ANC delegates at the close of the party's policy conference.

"[The] conference also affirmed the proposal to replace willing buyer, willing seller with the just and equitable principles in the constitution immediately – where the state is requiring land for land reform purposes."

Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said expropriation without compensation will only happen with land that is acquired illegally.

"The expropriation that we have now is unconstitutional and that act needs to be brought in line with the Constitution," she told reporters at the ANC policy conference in Midrand.

"We do not need to change the Constitution for this. Expropriation without compensation will only happen when land was acquired illegally. Only the court will determine whether land was acquired illegally, so there will be no indiscriminate expropriation."

She said the conference had decided that the "willing buyer, willing seller" approach to land restitution would be dropped.

Instead land expropriation would be done in terms of the “just and equitable” requirement of Section 25 of the Constitution.

Joemat-Pettersson said the section was a property clause that "allows us to do exactly we wanted to do [with land]".

She said the conference had not set any goals for expropriation, but would rather wait for the land audit to be completed at the end of the year.

Zuma also said the ANC proposed that land ownership by women be accelerated. "This is aimed at correcting the land question to address poverty," said Zuma.

He said women were the largest group affected by poverty and inequality. Zuma said the policy conference also proposed that land reform needed to be done in a way that would not disrupt agriculture and food security.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2012/06/30/appropriate-land-with-compensation-zuma

Frantic777

July 1st, 2012, 08:45 AM

Abandon ship.

Lydon

July 2nd, 2012, 04:12 PM

Abandon ship.

:|

rubbercenter

July 5th, 2012, 11:07 AM

Not directly related to South Africa but it will play a big part in the future development in Africa...

What you should know about Saudi investment in African farmland

Saudi Arabia is investing in agricultural land in Africa as the state’s local crop production diminish.
Saudi Arabia has a major problem with water scarcity and only 1% of its land is suitable for agriculture.
“Saudi investors have reportedly planned or concluded investments covering 800,000 hectares of land in Africa (accounting for almost 70% of all large deals struck by Saudi firms globally),” says Standard Bank in a recent report.
But why Africa, and what are the opportunities and problems Saudi investment in Africa might catalyse?
The Saudi agriculture problem
Saudi Arabia is approaching a food production crisis that is a major problem for its growing population that is consuming more food. “Local poultry production in 2012 is likely to be almost 800,000 tonnes lower than consumption, while wheat production will be deficient by around 1,800,000 tonnes and maize by 1,880,000 tonnes,” notes Standard Bank’s report. Saudi Arabia’s water scarcity is also problematic, with water consumption having more than doubled since 2006.
This has led to the Saudi government deciding to phase out local wheat production. By 2016 it will no longer purchase locally-grown wheat. The country is already estimated to import around 2.5 million tonnes of wheat between 2012/2013, and this is expected to increase to 3.3 million tonnes annually in the coming years.
However, relying on food imports is not ideal, with the country becoming vulnerable to unstable global supply and costs.
The solution: invest in foreign agricultural production as a “means to ensure a long-term, reliable supply of stable commodities,” says the report. It is because of this that the “Saudi government established the King Abdullah Initiative for Saudi Agriculture Investment Abroad under which large Saudi agribusiness firms are provided with credit, as well as strategic and logistical support to invest abroad”.
The Africa solution
With 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land being in Africa, it’s no wonder that Saudi Arabia has an eye on the continent, with almost 70% of all concluded and planned investments in offshore agriculture being in Africa.
“Factors considered in identifying suitable host countries for agricultural investments include the availability of resources and infrastructure, political and socio-economic stability, and favourable relations with the Saudi government,” notes the report. “Under this initiative, bilateral government-to-government deals can be struck which allow more fluid access for Saudi firms in target markets.”
An example of a Saudi investment in agricultural land in Africa is the Ethiopian government leasing 10,000 hectares to the Saudi Star Agricultural Development in 2008. The company has plans to acquire another 290,000 hectares of land.
“A guiding principle of the initiative is that the investor must have the right to export at least 50% of the farmed produce to Saudi Arabia,” says the report. “The primary products targeted are wheat, barley and maize.”
Weighing up the pros and cons for Africa
Africa needs investment for the improvement of infrastructure and to boost employment opportunities and skills development. Agricultural investment by Saudi firms could help with all these things and more.
However, Standard Bank points out that attention needs to be given to the possible negative ramifications. “Under-selling of agricultural assets (both land and, perhaps more critically, water) remains a profound threat. Meanwhile, as large tracts of land are sold or leased off to foreign investors, the social strains brought about by the relocation of local inhabitants has the potential to be deeply destabilising.”
An ideal investment in Africa’s agricultural land would include directing investment into agricultural infrastructure (such as storage and transport); providing employment and training for local communities; and ensuring that a generous portion of the crops go to local markets. The report also argues that “transparency in the manner in which land deals are struck, and adequate consultation with affected local communities, must be compulsory”.

http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/what-you-should-know-about-saudi-investment-in-african-farmland/17985/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HowWeMadeItInAfrica+%28How+We+Made+It+In+Africa%29

gregbb

July 9th, 2012, 12:34 AM

SA farmers to benefit from US agency fund

By: Hopewell Radebe
4 Jul 2012 15:50

South African agribusinesses struggling to raise funds to expand into neighbouring states should get a boost following the establishment of the Strategic Partnership Grant Fund by a US aid agency.
The US Agency for International Development has made available US$800000 in grant funds, and a maximum of $100000 could be awarded to deserving projects.

Eligible companies can apply for a grant from the Southern Africa Trade Hub, which administers the fund.

The initiative comes amid calls by the Agriculture Business Chamber (Agbiz) and lobby groups such as AgriSA for the establishment of a Southern African regional agricultural market with sufficient infrastructure for storage and transport.

Agbiz CEO John Purchase said the chamber has an agreement with the trade hub to support some of the chamber's programmes on a "moral basis", rather than a contractual or monetary basis.

"We believe the way to greater prosperity for all is through increased investment and trade - which are the two engines of growth," Purchase said.

According to the trade hub, the fund has been established to focus on South African companies as catalysts for increasing trade capacity in agricultural value chains in Southern Africa.

An African trade specialist at the Agriculture Business Chamber, Herbital Maluleke, said the fund was meant to support initiatives for a more integrated region to increase international competitiveness, intra-regional trade, and food security.

"The fund will benefit both local agribusiness and farmers, including linking previously disadvantaged farmers with the markets. It will also help establish the regional agribusiness sector by mitigating financial risk faced by South African agribusiness in the region," said Maluleke.

The fund is targeting businesses that are engaged in operations that can be "transferred to other Southern African Development Community countries" and were planning to expand their trade in agricultural products.

The hub is also hoping that the initiative will accelerate the transfer of skills leading to improved production, including inputs, processing, storage, analysis and marketing technologies, and other innovations in the agricultural supply chains, particularly in the grains and legumes sectors.

Source: Business Day

http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/475/77960.html

rubbercenter

September 4th, 2012, 06:49 AM

Farmers could become extinct: Agri SA

Pretoria - Commercial farmers could become extinct in the near future, Agri SA deputy president Theo de Jager said on Monday.

"The average age of a farmer is 62 years. This means we are going to become extinct. Somehow we have missed the generation of new entrants.

"This spells danger. We need more entrants from young people," he told the SA Agricultural Outlook conference in Pretoria.

De Jager said a study conducted by Agri SA showed that in 1994 South Africa had 120 000 farmers compared to 37 000 at present.

"We are to be blamed too. We have not made this profession sexy enough. It is not cool to be a farmer. We need to rectify this in a short space of time," he said.

De Jager said Agri SA had already started visiting schools to educate the youth about the agricultural sector.

Young people had yet to understand that the agricultural sector involved a variety of skills in different fields including science, labour, finance and engineering.

He said the decline in the number of farmers could also be blamed on the collapse of agricultural colleges.

De Jager said young people were not going into the agricultural sector because farming had not been profitable in South Africa in recent years.

South Africa lagged behind other emerging economies in research and development in the agricultural sector because of the shortage of young people, he said.

However, De Jager said the decline in the number of farmers was a global phenomenon caused by farmers growing bigger to have the advantage of the economy of scale.

Both the government and private sector had not done enough to attract young people into farming.

De Jager said ageing farmers could not take new opportunities created by the new forms of land ownership.

He said the government should consider involving farmworkers in its land reform programme, because they already had experience in farming.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Farmers-could-become-extinct-Agri-SA-20120903

Lydon

September 4th, 2012, 09:27 AM

Now if the government had any sense, they'd stop blindly rushing to get as many black farm owners as possible within a short a space of time, and instead assist in the development of young up-and-coming black farmers to meet long-term transformation targets without stepping on toes or threatening food security.

Diggerdog

September 4th, 2012, 09:46 AM

Exactly.

And this just proves there is no need to make an issue out of 'siezing' land...there is plenty of land up for sale, and there will be more as farmers retire and wotnot.

If they set up a fund to assist with training and helping young people get into this sector, there will be more than enough land, and we will have skilled people to work it.

annman

September 4th, 2012, 12:22 PM

^^ Forgot the statistic, but think it was somewhere between 5-10% of agricultural land in SA is on the market, annually.

The government is just leaderless, paralysed and has no initiative to do anything. I have NO sympathy for the government anymore, whatsoever. Farmers are a scapegoat for their paralysis, period!

Agricultural land IS available, the Dept. of Land Restitution and Rural Development is just pathetic and doesn't capitalise on the opportunities in the market. Could you imagine where we'd be in agricultural land ownership patterns now, if they just bought 20% of the land on the market, annually, with a skills/market transfer program etc.? ALREADY, 36% of all arable "previous White" land would be in emerging Black farmers' hands.

There're f**king pathetic!!!

annman

October 23rd, 2012, 01:44 PM

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/applications/politicsweb/templates/images/logo_politicsweb_182x35.gif

Aspects of Zuma's land reform proposal border on extortion - Agri SA
Johannes Möller
23 October 2012

Johannes Möller challenges suggestion that farmers pay half cost of land expropriations in their area

LAND REFORM: A PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY

"Fresh thinking on how land reform can be approached by applying sound business practises and adhering to constitutional principles is required to place agriculture on a sustainable growth path," said Agri SA president, Johannes Möller, in response to a land reform proposal elucidated by President Zuma at a dinner hosted by the African Farmers' Association of South Africa (AFASA) last night. "While there is merit in some elements of this proposal - derived from Vision 2030 - they fail to ensure fairness to all parties," said Möller.

Agri SA agrees that local committees can be tasked to determine land reform needs per district. Such committees could help in identifying available land as well as beneficiaries who should qualify for assistance and post-settlement support. A more comprehensive financing package for beneficiaries is also indispensable.

The controversial elements of the proposal deal with a limitation on the state's costs to acquire land, namely 50 percent of the market value, and the requirement that other land owners in the district should volunteer to cover the balance. Such voluntary contributors will then receive certain assurances and exemptions in exchange for their participation in the programme.

Möller said that although the proposal attempts to distribute the cost of land reform over a broader basis, it was not fair and equitable to encumber fellow land owners in a district with the financial burden of land reform undertaken in the public interest.

"The fiscus has the necessary funds and should make its full contribution in this regard, as stipulated in the Constitution. To require such additional contributions from land owners in exchange for security of land ownership and attaining black economic empowerment status, borders on extortion. It also fails to take into account whether or not a fellow farmer has the financial means to make such a contribution. For many medium to small farmers it may be an unfeasible proposition which could subject them to an uncertain future," said Möller.

President Zuma invited commentary on the viability of this proposal, to which Agri SA will respond in greater detail. This organisation's Transformation Policy Committee will attend to the matter at its meeting on 13 November 2012. The challenge is to refrain from merely criticising a well-intentioned proposal and to come up with workable solutions to a complex issue.

Statetment issued by Mr Johannes Möller, President Agri SA, October 23 2012

Marsupalami

October 28th, 2012, 11:13 AM

ECape farmers leaving SA
Sun, 28 Oct 2012 8:24 AM
EmailMore

Uncertainty about South Africa's political future and the government's land reform process are just two of the reasons cited by Eastern Cape farmers for leaving the country, the Weekend Post reports.

According to Agri SA, the exodus of South African commercial farmers to neighbouring countries like Botswana, Mozambique, and Congo is increasing every year, not only because their skills are highly sought after in these countries, but because they fear becoming "undesirables" at home.

The farmers say low interest rates on loan repayments as well as the current strength of African currencies play a big part in luring them north.

In the biggest deal to date, Congo offered South African farmers long leases on up to 10 million hectares of land. The region includes abandoned state farms and bush in the remote south-west of the country. The first contracts, which put 88,000 hectares in the hands of 70 farmers, were signed at a ceremony in the country last year.

Agri SA vice-president Theo de Jager said within the next two years more than 300 farmers were expected to be placed in Congo. Latest figures show that as many as 940 South African farmers are settled in Mozambique, while Botswana has just topped the 300 mark.

De Jager added that of the 120,000 farmers operating in South Africa in the 1980s, only 37,000 remained in the country.

"What is even more problematic is that the average age of our farmers is 62, and there don't seem to be any young farmers coming through.

"Many farmers are warning their children not to pursue a career in farming in South Africa. They fear they might not have a future because of land restitution and that the land will end up not being utilised."

Ruth Hall of the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape said South Africa was not just exporting its farmers, but also its "value chains" to the rest of the continent.

Bathurst stock farmer and former vet Nick Fischer is buying a farm in Botswana after "giving up hope on this country".

"Even if I could be given a one percent guarantee that my family's future would be secure in 20 years, it is still not good enough," he told the Weekend Post.

"While I personally have not been a victim of stock theft or a farm attack, many people have. Then you look at people like Julius Malema, who is a symptom of all the problems this country has and you realise your children have little hope."

He claims Botswana promises a wealth of opportunities for hard-working farmers.

"I am very impressed with Botswana. The Botswana currency [pula] is the strongest in Africa, and better than the rand [1 pula to about R1.06 presently]. Loans are also readily available from the Botswana Development Corporation at between 4.5 and five percent, which is very reasonable."

His 12-year-old son could qualify to be a Botswana citizen within five years, which meant he would be eligible to enjoy free tertiary education upon completing school.

"The Botswana government even sends some of these students overseas to study."

Fischer's brother, Charles, who farms ostriches in Alicedale, intends making the same move.

"I have always had the intent as a farmer for expansion, but in the current political climate that seems almost impossible because of land reform policies.

"In the interim the South African government is completely ignoring the infrastructure that farmers need to survive. For years I have been appealing for the service road to my farm to be improved, because every time it rains it becomes completely waterlogged. The trucks can't even drive on it to pick up the ostriches for slaughter."

The Keevy family said their decision to buy in Mozambique five years ago had proved to be the right one, but that patience was required to be registered as farmers in the country.

Martin Keevy, who previously farmed beef cattle outside Nelson Mandela Bay, said the Mozambique countryside and its people were "beautiful", and water was plentiful.

"We decided to buy land in Sofala province in 2007, but it is only in more recent years that we've managed to make a go of it," he said.

Marsupalami

November 20th, 2012, 09:46 PM

Nothing new here per se, and I not being negative or fear-mogering at all, but one part of the article does hit home at how quick bad situations lead to irreperable decline or reshape things for the worse. That being said, the "heading North" situation does still mean infolow of capital back into SA, and its now better recognised as a general business strategy for AgriSA, but will nontheless lead to food security issues at home, as well as unemployment etc:

SA farmers looking North
Tue, 20 Nov 2012 8:26 AM - iAfrica.com

More than 50 farmers a month are inquiring about Agri SA's involvement with agricultural projects elsewhere in Africa, Beeld reported on Tuesday.

During the last two weeks, countless farmers from the Western Cape had also made inquiries, Dirk Hanekom, executive head of AgriSAMoz, told the newspaper.

According to Hanekom, around 950 South African farmers already had farming interests in Mozambique.
"Around 60 percent of them are actively involved... in a wide range of farms, the biggest of which I'd say are sugar, banana and cattle farms," Hanekom said.

South African farmers had also moved to Botswana, Zambia and the Congo, while 28 other African countries had asked Agri SA to become involved with ensuring food security for their economies.

Agri SA vice president Theo de Jager said there were several reasons for South African farmers wanting to move north.

"Land claims result in uncertainty. There's not a single banana farm without a land claim, and running costs, in particular electricity, and labour costs are extremely high. In Mozambique, electricity costs a fraction of what it costs here," De Jager said.

Yuri S Andrade

January 12th, 2013, 11:23 AM

Once more I visit this thread hoping for better news, but everything keeps getting worse. So sad for a country whose one of its ethnicities are called "farmers". It seems some people in SA learned nothing about how toxic and evil official racism is.

Meanwhile, in Brazil:

For the 3rd year straight, Brazil will have a record harvest, reaching 180 million t of grains* against 166 million in 2012. An 8.6% growth.

Mato Grosso state (Midwest) finally overtook Paraná state (South). Virtually all commercial farmers in Mato Grosso came from South though. Also the Midwest region itself overtook South on the same year too.

The detailed figures:

http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad358/johnbullxx/estadosbrasileiros1.jpg

BRASIL --- 180,406,800 t

Norte --- 5,205,000
AC ------- 127,000
RO ----- 1,150,000
AM ------- 54,600
RR ------- 131,200
AP --------- 5,800
PA ----- 1,194,200
TO ----- 2,542,300

Nordeste --- 15,084,500
MA ----- 3,278,200
PI ------ 2,541,900
CE ------- 794,800
RN -------- 13,300
PB -------- 42,300
PE ------- 249,300
AL -------- 63,300
SE ------ 932,200
BA ----- 7,169,200

Centro-Oeste --- 71,616,300
DF ------- 608,500
GO ---- 17,924,400
MT ---- 40,989,200
MS ---- 12,094,200

Sudeste --- 19,686,200
ES -------- 88,500
MG ---- 12,170,900
RJ -------- 23,600
SP ----- 7,403,200

Sul --- 68,814,700
PR ---- 35,407,700
SC ----- 6,147,900
RS ---- 27,259,200

* Cereals + Soybeans + Beans

As I've stated before in this thread, there is no reason whatsoever for South Africa not being performing as good as Brazil. In 1994, for instance, South Africa was way ahead of Paraná state (an old and very consolidated producing area, by no means a booming region as Mato Grosso). Now, Paraná's harvest is 3.5 larger than South Africa's.

ToxicBunny

February 4th, 2013, 02:23 PM

http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Farmworkers-to-get-R105day-20130204

Think we will be kissing quite a few jobs goodbye with such a massive hike in the minimum wage.

Would be interesting to see the maths in relation to mechanisation now..

annman

February 4th, 2013, 02:43 PM

The maths was done a while ago already, before the labour unrest. The sector as job-creator, is in not just in decline, it's in free fall...

Quotes from the WWF Agri-economy report:

"Agriculture’s contribution to employment in South Africa has dropped by 75% between 1993 and 2005, to employ only 628000 farm workers (Agricultural Statistics, 2008). The Department of Agriculture’s Medium Term Strategic Frame*work emphasises agriculture as a focus area for job creation."

and...

"Sadly, employment is on the decline in the commercial farming sector, as farms have become larger and more mechanised. According to the 2008 agricultural statistics, the total number of farm employees has dropped from 1,6million in 1971 to 628000 in 2005. Given the population increase over that time,agriculture’s contribution to employment dropped from 8,3% to 1,3% in relative terms."

I would say, this latest 5-6times inflation wage-bill hike shock to the agricultural economic system will cause approximately 20% of agricultural employment to be shed within the next 5-years; that would dump almost 130,000 people into the pool of rural umemployed. Already, since 1971, prior to this huge hike, the agriculture sector was shedding jobs on average at 30,000 per annum. The balance of losses will be cushioned by a sharp reduction in "freebie" permanent employee perks, like free housing, water, doctor's visits, transport and subsidised electricity. When you try to legislate, rather than educate out of poverty, there's one outcome... rampant unemployment.

ToxicBunny

February 4th, 2013, 05:57 PM

Yeah, I remember the costing was done awhile, but we were all speculating wildly at that point... would be interesting to see it done with the actual numbers now for comparison really.

Yeah, I think you're 100% right. Some farms will keep all their staff but scale back on freebies big time... this wage increase is short sighted in the extreme.. and there will be more unrest next year when they look for more than a CPI+1.5% increase (i've never been a fan of this type of model because workers effectively get a 1.5% increase for doing nothing different, it doesn't promote hard work or anything of the sort)

annman

February 4th, 2013, 09:51 PM

Well, already in Magoebaskloof, 28 farmers have given notice to 780 staff members that retrenchments must occur.

We're keeping all, but 2 of our staff. 2 Members that are not in work most mornings and often only work 1-2 full days a week will be let go. All people who live in staff housing who are not full-time staff members (excluding spouse and children under-21) will be charged rent. Women's work hours will be cut back, as they're simply not as productive as their male counterparts in manual tasks. Performance bonuses are scrapped.

Those are our interventions that happened just today to remain liquid and not have to retrench en masse and maintain most of our empowerment project perks and programs.

ToxicBunny

February 5th, 2013, 05:34 AM

So very very sad for those workers :( and of course the farmer will be blamed, not the government who is responsible for this.

annman

February 5th, 2013, 06:51 AM

Zuma has just equated mine closures to blackmail. Waiting for him to slam commercial agriculture soon. ANC: Party of can cause anything, but expects ZERO effect.

ToxicBunny

February 5th, 2013, 07:10 AM

Yeah.... saw that as well... I know he's thick as pig shit, but even that is beyond the level of stupidity I expected from Zuma...

annman

February 7th, 2013, 09:10 AM

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Labour axed as farmers face soaring wages, costs
BY ALEXANDER PARKER, 07 FEBRUARY 2013, 06:05

AT LEAST 2,000 farm workers were issued with retrenchment notices on Wednesday as the agricultural sector shed jobs ahead of the implementation of a new minimum wage, and as mechanisation on farms gathers pace.

Agriculture has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs since minimum wages were first implemented in 2000. Analysts warn that thousands more will be lost when the new wage — increased by 50% by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant — comes into effect on March 1.

Industry insiders warned on Wednesday that mechanisation on farms had begun some time ago and was picking up pace.

Farmers in Limpopo and Mpumalanga and milk producers were said to have started serving workers with retrenchment notices, but Western Cape farms were quiet with no reported threats of dismissal.

The reaction of farmers to the new wage has been most marked in Limpopo, where Agri South Africa said 730 workers had been given notice in George’s Valley and Magoebaskloof. Farmers in Mpumalanga have said they would follow the Magoebaskloof example and cut back on labour.

The move to mechanise has lit a fire under farm implement sales. Last year was "exceptional", said Agricultural Machinery Association secretary Jim Rankin.

"We sold nearly 8,000 units," Mr Rankin said. About 60% of those machines were tractors.

He said, however, that the mechanisation of South Africa’s farms was "a process, not an event".

Over the past three years, the farm machinery industry had outperformed each year by 50%, he said. In 2003, there were 3,200 units of agricultural machinery sold in South Africa, and by last year nearly 7,800 units were sold.

Mr Rankin said this was evidence of a "mechanisation impetus" in agriculture, despite the fact that "the area under cultivation in South Africa has, in fact, reduced".

He expected farmers to look more closely at mechanisation "in the light of the last six months" — during which workers went on strike and unions demanded big wage rises — but said the process "started a long time ago".

Johan van der Merwe, MD of Northmec, a leading tractor and machine distributor, agreed on Wednesday that business was very good. "We’re expecting a very good year," he said.

Callie Human, the head of sales and marketing at agricultural equipment distributor Argo Industrial, described the market in the past six months as "quite lively", but he pointed out that some sales could be attributed to "good commodity prices on the grain side".

Farmers were abandoning labour-intensive sectors to focus on those that were easily mechanised, Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa chairman Louis Meintjes warned on Wednesday.

He described the past few months as a "tragedy", but asked: "What can farmers do? We started to mechanise some time ago, to get rid of labour, or to move to another sector."

Mr Meintjes warned that farmers were being squeezed "from all directions", citing the cost of electricity, the price of diesel, taxes and the cost of labour.

As a result of new minimum wages for farm workers being set at R105 a day, farmers in Limpopo and Mpumalanga had issued notices of retrenchment to their workers "in order to survive".

"Our information is that at least 2,000 workers have received notices. It’s done on a financial basis for survival. The minister put us in this position," he said. The flight from labour-intensive agricultural practices had already severely affected the price of foodstuffs — such as vegetables — produced in a manner that cannot be mechanised, Econometrix chief economist Azar Jammine said.

"This will be inflationary. Fruit and vegetable prices have already risen more than other foodstuffs," he said on Wednesday.

Mr Jammine said there had been extensive shedding of jobs on farms since minimum wages were introduced in 2000.

According to the old labour survey methodology, the sector shed about 700,000 workers between 2000 and 2007 — from 1.84-million employees in 2000 to 1.16-million in 2007.

Mr Jammine said the decrease was attributable to the implementation of minimum wages, although "some might say that the broadening of the social grant net would have had an impact as well".

He warned the new minimum wages were a "classic knee-jerk blunder" that would act as a "counter to land reform".

This was because "only the big commercial farmers will survive, and emerging farmers will struggle", Mr Jammine said.

Congress of South African Trade Unions Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich said on Wednesday several government incentives and schemes existed to help farmers retain their workers, but "some old farmers" wanted to carry on paying "slave wages".

No farmers had taken up the offer of a reprieve from the minimum wage, the Department of Labour said.

With Carol Paton

annman

February 7th, 2013, 09:11 AM

http://www.mlab.co.za/files/2011/08/bd_logo.png

Labour axed as farmers face soaring wages, costs
BY ALEXANDER PARKER, 07 FEBRUARY 2013, 06:05

AT LEAST 2,000 farm workers were issued with retrenchment notices on Wednesday as the agricultural sector shed jobs ahead of the implementation of a new minimum wage, and as mechanisation on farms gathers pace.

Agriculture has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs since minimum wages were first implemented in 2000. Analysts warn that thousands more will be lost when the new wage — increased by 50% by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant — comes into effect on March 1.

Industry insiders warned on Wednesday that mechanisation on farms had begun some time ago and was picking up pace.

Farmers in Limpopo and Mpumalanga and milk producers were said to have started serving workers with retrenchment notices, but Western Cape farms were quiet with no reported threats of dismissal.

The reaction of farmers to the new wage has been most marked in Limpopo, where Agri South Africa said 730 workers had been given notice in George’s Valley and Magoebaskloof. Farmers in Mpumalanga have said they would follow the Magoebaskloof example and cut back on labour.

The move to mechanise has lit a fire under farm implement sales. Last year was "exceptional", said Agricultural Machinery Association secretary Jim Rankin.

"We sold nearly 8,000 units," Mr Rankin said. About 60% of those machines were tractors.

He said, however, that the mechanisation of South Africa’s farms was "a process, not an event".

Over the past three years, the farm machinery industry had outperformed each year by 50%, he said. In 2003, there were 3,200 units of agricultural machinery sold in South Africa, and by last year nearly 7,800 units were sold.

Mr Rankin said this was evidence of a "mechanisation impetus" in agriculture, despite the fact that "the area under cultivation in South Africa has, in fact, reduced".

He expected farmers to look more closely at mechanisation "in the light of the last six months" — during which workers went on strike and unions demanded big wage rises — but said the process "started a long time ago".

Johan van der Merwe, MD of Northmec, a leading tractor and machine distributor, agreed on Wednesday that business was very good. "We’re expecting a very good year," he said.

Callie Human, the head of sales and marketing at agricultural equipment distributor Argo Industrial, described the market in the past six months as "quite lively", but he pointed out that some sales could be attributed to "good commodity prices on the grain side".

Farmers were abandoning labour-intensive sectors to focus on those that were easily mechanised, Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa chairman Louis Meintjes warned on Wednesday.

He described the past few months as a "tragedy", but asked: "What can farmers do? We started to mechanise some time ago, to get rid of labour, or to move to another sector."

Mr Meintjes warned that farmers were being squeezed "from all directions", citing the cost of electricity, the price of diesel, taxes and the cost of labour.

As a result of new minimum wages for farm workers being set at R105 a day, farmers in Limpopo and Mpumalanga had issued notices of retrenchment to their workers "in order to survive".

"Our information is that at least 2,000 workers have received notices. It’s done on a financial basis for survival. The minister put us in this position," he said. The flight from labour-intensive agricultural practices had already severely affected the price of foodstuffs — such as vegetables — produced in a manner that cannot be mechanised, Econometrix chief economist Azar Jammine said.

"This will be inflationary. Fruit and vegetable prices have already risen more than other foodstuffs," he said on Wednesday.

Mr Jammine said there had been extensive shedding of jobs on farms since minimum wages were introduced in 2000.

According to the old labour survey methodology, the sector shed about 700,000 workers between 2000 and 2007 — from 1.84-million employees in 2000 to 1.16-million in 2007.

Mr Jammine said the decrease was attributable to the implementation of minimum wages, although "some might say that the broadening of the social grant net would have had an impact as well".

He warned the new minimum wages were a "classic knee-jerk blunder" that would act as a "counter to land reform".

This was because "only the big commercial farmers will survive, and emerging farmers will struggle", Mr Jammine said.

Congress of South African Trade Unions Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich said on Wednesday several government incentives and schemes existed to help farmers retain their workers, but "some old farmers" wanted to carry on paying "slave wages".

No farmers had taken up the offer of a reprieve from the minimum wage, the Department of Labour said.

With Carol Paton