Table of contents for 27 October 2023 in Farmer's Weekly

Farming is a difficult, and largely thankless, job. It often involves strenuous physical labour and uncertainty, as farmers are heavily dependent on factors beyond their control, such as weather, pests and diseases. Crop yield can also be unpredictable, and one poor season can have a significant impact on a farmer’s income. Farming can also be financially risky, with large investments required in assets, such as equipment, and inputs, such as seed. The return on farming is slow, and many farmers have to wait an entire season before seeing any income. Market volatility is also a factor that must be considered when entering farming as a profession; the prices of agricultural products can be highly volatile, subject to fluctuations influenced by supply and demand, global markets, and trade policies. Further, farmers…

South Africa’s stark and sunny landscape in the Northern Cape presents a valuable opportunity to capitalise on hydrogen power generation. Encouraging the building of such plants and exporting the gas to the Netherlands will be a key focus area during the state visit by the Netherlands’ government in October. The EU was previously dependent on gas from Russia for its energy supply, but this has been halted since the war on Ukraine. Hydrogen gas has been earmarked as a more feasible solution than erecting more wind turbines on the Netherlands coast. However, to meet the demand from the EU, 90% of the required hydrogen gas will need to be imported. Speaking at a media briefing in The Hague, Netherlands, Jorg Gigler, managing director of Dutch New Gas Innovation, said that…

An increasingly stringent focus on sustainability in the EU will have farreaching consequences for industries exporting products to the Netherlands. South Africa was the Netherlands’ second-largest trading partner in Africa, with the majority of South Africa’s export fruit destined for the port in Rotterdam. On Farmer’s Weekly’s recent visit to the country, it was clear that environmental sustainability had taken centre stage, with organic and vegetarian-based food dominating the food landscape. Restaurant menus have also taken to citing locally procured or sustainably procured ingredients to quell consumers’ concerns over their environmental footprint. Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said that while the country would always be dependent on imports for food that could not be grown in the Netherlands, like avocados, the country was aiming for a more sustainable…

CHINA China’s pig prices have seen a decline in October despite the holiday break in the country. Analysts at Huachuang Securities released the statistics showing a 4% drop in price per kilogram. The company said the falling prices were due to both rising supply and weak demand. From February to July, the number of newborn piglets increased by 8,4% year-on-year, but consumption was weak due to slow economic recovery. Share prices at the country’s biggest hog producers also plunged, with Muyuan Foods down 7,6%, the lowest since January 2020. UNITED STATES US company Tyson Foods announced that it had to reduce poultry production as chicken prices hit record highs in the country’s grocery stores, forcing customers to choose other options. According to the company, shoppers were showing preference for beef…

The value of South Africa’s agricultural output has more than doubled in real terms since 1994, largely driven by increased productivity, underpinned by technological innovation, as well as growth in traditional export markets in addition to access to new ones. This was according to new analysis undertaken by the director of the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) Prof Johann Kirsten and the director of the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), Prof Ferdi Meyer. The pair’s aim was to assess how the agriculture sector performed against the development objectives and targets outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP). Using the recently launched 2023 BFAP Baseline as well as data on land reform collected by the BER, Kirsten and Meyer gained a sense of the the sector’s performance. However, they…

The!Xhariep division of Agricultural Writers South Africa, which represents the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape, recently announced its winners to compete in the national competition. Dr Dirk Troskie won the title of Western Cape Agriculturist of the Year. He is the director of business planning and strategy in the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, and responsible for providing advice and information on strategic issues. This is one of the leading evaluating departments in Africa. On an international level, he served as the Southern African representative on the executive committee of the African Association of Agricultural Economists and was invited by the African Union to participate in the development of a geographical indication (GI) Strategy for Africa. Paul Siguqa won the title of Western Cape New Entrant to Commercial Farming. He…

While there is sentiment that interest rates have peaked, rate cuts are not expected anytime soon. Inflation therefore continues to remain centre stage in market dynamics around the globe. In this article, we consider the causes and implications of persistent inflation. After a prolonged period of rate hikes by central banks around the world in efforts to curb high levels of inflation, the question facing economic policymakers is whether we are at the end of the monetary policy tightening cycle. What was initially dubbed ‘transitory inflation’ has lingered longer than anticipated. The emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic both in Western countries and South Africa led to robust demand for goods, which resulted in supply chain disruptions and elevated levels of inflation. The increased demand was driven by expansionary monetary policies…

Hardened-offplants are thicker and more resistant to transplant damage and stress than non-hardened seedlings. Hardened-off plants need less attention in the field, resulting in more energy spent on other aspects of farming, says Antonius Lecuona at Horticulture South Africa. “Hardened-off seedlings are more resistant to low temperatures, harsh weather, wind, high temperatures, drought and mechanical injury.” It’s best to transplant seedlings in the morning, when temperatures are low. That’s not always possible, though, especially if a large field must be planted. “With hardened-off seedlings, a higher percentage of seedlings will survive this process even if they were transplanted later in the day,” says Lecuona. Hardening off tomato seedlings can be done in a week, but ideally it should be completed in two weeks. The seedlings are toughened by controlling the…

Domestic Terror: Intimate Partner Violence In South Africa by Nechama Brodie (Kwela, R340) Every day more than three women in South Africa, on average, are murdered by male partners. Brodie’s probing analysis pairs media reports of violence against women, sometimes all the more shocking for the short dispassionate accounts, with well-selected data and discussions of how women’s rights are written into law but in reality women are given all too little practical protection. Brodie’s wide-ranging and strongly written asides take us back 4 000 years to when killing a woman was legal in certain circumstances in Sumeria and forward to an era where a range of sanctions might be possible against those guilty of domestic violence, including ordering them to move out of a block of flats by a body…

ARCHIVE The southern region of the Cape is cooler than other wine-producing areas, which makes for top-quality products. Wildekrans wine estate near Bot River has been producing for more than a century. The 1 100ha estate originally belonged to the De Kock family from 1864, but in 1980 the estate was bought by Houhoek Farms. Some of the concrete wine vats are dated 1926, when the estate was producing some very choice wines. Until recently, all the grapes were delivered to Villiersdorp Co-op. However, a new cellar with all the latest equipment was erected two years ago, and now some of the finest wines available are being produced on the estate. The cool climate with its average summer temperature around 21°C adds to the quality of such wines as Sauvignon…

The success of the Just Energy Transition (JET) plan will largely depend on international financial support, said Neil Cole, JET investment plan project manager during a panel discussion at Windaba 2023, held recently in Cape Town. South Africa forged a JET Partnership with France, Germany, the UK, the EU and the US at the 26th Conference of Parties in 2021, during which the group pledged US$8,5 billion (about R160 billion) in grants, concessional and commercial loans, and guarantee instruments over a period of five years to support South Africa’s JET. But Cole says some of these countries, have since withdrawn their support. According to South Africa’s JET Investment plan, the US$8,5 billion represents only about 12% of the R1,5 trillion required to finance the plan over the five-year period. Comparing…

An innovative online electronic system that seeks to ensure compliance in South Africa’s food and animal products industry was launched by the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s Veterinary Services recently. The Export Certificate Office System (ECOS) launch coincided with the Western Cape’s inaugural Veterinary Week, which focused on state veterinary services’ role in the agriculture sector, one of which is export facilitation. Western Cape department head of the Veterinary Export Certification Office, Dr Vincent Henwood, explained that ECOS provided permit templates aligned with importing countries’ permits, streamlining the export process and ensuring compliance with international standards. “ECOS enables tracking of products, including animalderived ones, back to their source farms, thus ensuring transparency throughout the supply chain.” Western Cape MEC for agriculture, Dr Ivan Meyer, welcomed the system as an innovative…

Primary agricultural producers in Namibia stand at the bottom of the value chain of the country’s total national economy. In a developing country like Namibia, where 70% of the population are directly and indirectly dependent on the agricultural value chain, this presents particular challenges to the agricultural sector. This is according to Piet Gouws, the exiting president of the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU). “We are at the mercy of external variables, such as weather conditions, minimal-to-no influence on product prices, a worldwide attack on meat and meat products, so-called methane gases from cattle and other ruminants, and land reform actions and land use patterns that result in a definite change in the immediate environment and absent landowners. The increased pressure on rural security and disaster management, wildfires, pest control and…

Grade A carcass beef prices decreased by 25% since the beginning of 2023 and weaner calf prices by 13%. The main reason for the decrease in prices in spite of the primary sectors still being in a herd-building phase and the negative impact of foot-and-mouth disease on some feedlots, is the weaker consumer demand caused by higher inflation, the highest interest rate in years and the impact of load-shedding on the value-chain and on consumers. Households’ final consumption expenditure decreased annually by 1% in the second quarter of 2023 after weak growth of 1,4% in the first quarter. The participants in the Economist of the Year competition on average expect 0,9% growth in consumer expenditure in 2023. Consumer debt and debt service cost both increased. Consumer debt decreased from 85%…

A recent research project in India presents a convolutional neural network (CNN) model for diagnosing tomato leaf diseases. The study, published in the Current Agriculture Research Journal, was conducted by Jayesh Kokate and Sunil Kumar from the Kalinga University of India together with Anant Kulkarni from the Siddhivinavak Technical Campus. The research falls under precision agriculture and the disease detection system will be useful for farmers to reduce the harm caused by diseases in the initial stage of occurrence. “The ideal CNN structure for detecting tomato leaf disease is challenging to design. The method used in this paper is to detect tomato leaf disease using an improved CNN algorithm. In the proposed method, data from ‘plant village’ is analysed,” they wrote. The team used the publicly available dataset of 14…

Dear Prof McCrindle, What is Crimean Congo fever? Can it infect cattle as well as people? How is it transmitted? Kind regards, Anonymous Dear Anonymous, Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a dangerous viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by Hyalomma ticks. In South Africa, the common name for this parasite is the bontpoot tick, because it has striped legs. CCHF occurs in many countries, including South Africa, where three species of Hyalomma exist: H. truncatum, H. marginatum and H. rufipes. This is a twohost tick: the juveniles feed on birds, hares and rodents; while the adults feed on cattle, horses and wild game, ostriches and guinea fowl. The disease was named following an outbreak that occurred in Crimea during the Second World War (1944). The virus was subsequently isolated, for the…

The next general election is six to seven months away, but government actions and party political debates seem to have already moved into election mode. In terms of the Constitution and electoral legislation, South Africa should have its next general and provincial elections in May 2024 in terms of the amended Electoral Act. The foremost implication of the new Electoral Amendment Act 1 of 2023 is that independent candidates can now participate in the national election for both the National Assembly and provincial legislatures. In the case of the National Assembly, they will contest in the provincial lists (200 out of 400 members of Parliament). The context in which the election is going to take place will be influenced by several very important issues and developments, such as the inability…

The adoption of a framework calling for highly hazardous pesticides in the agriculture sector to be phased out has been lauded by South African Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Environmental Affairs Barbara Creecy. The framework was adopted after the 5th session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management, held in September in Bonn, Germany. The main aim of the conference was to adopt a ‘Beyond 2020’ chemicals and waste global policy framework instrument. The framework calls for, by 2035, a phasing out of highly hazardous pesticides in agriculture where the risks have not been managed and safer alternatives are available, and further seeks to strengthen links between the new instrument and the climate, biodiversity, human rights and health agendas. Creecy welcomed the success of the South African negotiating team…

Africa is using less than 1% of its 33 642GW wind energy generation capacity, according to The Status of Wind in Africa report released recently by the Global Wind Energy Council. The council’s market development director, Emerson Clarke, said during the release of the report at the 2023 Windaba in Cape Town, that the report aimed to give an understanding of the current state of project activity in Africa’s utility-scale wind energy market and provide policymakers and financial services with information to build on to meet the growing global demand for clean energy. The report, which was limited to wind farms bigger than 1MW, said there were 83 wind farms across Africa providing 9GW of power. An analysis of the continent’s pipeline, however, found capacity could increase by more than…

The UK transport department recently announced that farmers affected by the closure of the HS2 rail link would not receive compensation. Transport secretary Mark Harper said in a statement that the government had spent more than £423 million (about R9,8 billion) on buying hundreds of properties and land for the now-scrapped Birmingham to Manchester leg of the route. He said they would now recoup the money by selling off property and land it purchased along the route. However, farmers told the BBC that this period had been stressful and costly for them. One farmer who converted some of his land on the farm into a wedding venue said there was now a line, that looked like a scar, running across the middle of the farm due to the groundwork that…

The National Biodiversity Offset Guideline (BOG) that was published earlier in 2023 by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment raised a couple of fundamental questions, according to Janse Rabie, legal and policy executive at Agri SA. The department previously announced that the purpose of the guideline was to address the shortcomings of biodiversity offset practices by setting out the fundamental principles of offsetting. It also gave guidance on when biodiversity offsetting was required, how to determine the requirements, and how it should be implemented. Garyn Rapson, partner at Webber Wentzel, senior associate Paula-Ann Novotny, and associate Nonhlanhla Mnengi, explained in a statement that the BOG was published under Section 24J of the National Environmental Management Act of 1998 (NEMA), and was meant to regulate applications for environmental authorisations (EAs)…

Months after the outbreak of a severe fire at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DEFF) Waste Management Bureau’s Biesiesvlei waste tyre storage depot in North West, little has been done to fully rehabilitate the affected area. Boeta du Toit, CEO of Agri North West, said that despite continuous efforts from the organisation’s side to engage with the authorities regarding the rehabilitation of the area before the advent of the rainy season, very little had been done so far. He expressed serious concern about the possible contamination of the surrounding agricultural soils as well as the possibility of large-scale contamination of the Harts River that runs close by. “We are extremely worried that pollutants could leach out from the site onto agricultural land, rendering the soil unsafe for…

The South African economy and agriculture sector will face significant obstacles should government proceed with plans to place gene editing (GE) technology under the same regulatory framework as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). During the fourth Sustainable Bio Innovation Symposium, hosted by Biosafety SA in Pretoria in September, stakeholders noted that South Africa and New Zealand were the only two countries worldwide who had indicated they would regulate GE crops in the same way was GMOs, meaning that stringent, lengthy processes were involved. On the other hand, traditional opponents of GMOs, like Kenya and the EU, together with the US, have taken the decision to regulate GE crops the same as conventional crops, since the end products bore no genetic differences. Magdeleen Cilliers, policy and research manager at the South African…

With the development of targeted therapeutics in the cannabis industry, the field of medicine is undergoing a profound transformation. Traditional medicine frequently adopts a one-size-fits-all philosophy, when treatments are given based on general diagnoses. However, targeted therapeutics is positioned to transform patient care as knowledge of the complex functions of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) and the subtleties of cannabis compounds advances. THE ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM Balance and homeostasis are crucially maintained by the body’s intricate network of receptors and chemicals, known as the endocannabinoid system. It has an impact on a range of physiological processes, including immune response, mood control, and pain perception. The cannabis plant’s cannabinoids interact with this system and may have medicinal effects. PRECISION MEDICINE Targeted therapeutics in cannabis medicine is akin to precision medicine, a concept gaining…

The objective of apps created by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) varies depending on their focus area. The objective of the Farm Assessment Tool (FAT) kit is to allow for the evaluation of a farm in a scientific manner, using the natural resource base of the farm as foundation. The resources inform relevant enterprise, which leads to a level of economic prospects for the farm, in combination with associated infrastructural and managerial evaluation. It aims to help the farmer achieve a profitable and sustainable enterprise, by highlighting the areas of potential and comparing with current performance, as well as providing the information resources and support to give farming enterprises a roadmap to achieve their potential. THE APPS The ARC has developed several apps and systems which focus on the different…

La Motte is taking South African-produced Rosé to a whole new level with its Vin de Joie. Edmund Terblanche, winemaker of La Motte, explains that Rosé is often the result of a mixing of red and white wine, or a byproduct of red wine production. La Motte, however, decided to produce a Provence-style Rosé, which means that all their attention is focused on producing an excellent Rosé in its own right. To this end, the grapes are gently handpicked into crates that are only half-filled to prevent them from being squashed before they reach the cellar. The grapes are also cooled down overnight to release as little colour as possible at crush. To further constrain colour and phenolic extraction, only the first 600ℓ of free run juice from every ton…