Table of contents for 24 August 2018 in Farmer's Weekly

Transformation in the farming sector, or any other sector, has not failed because too little effort and money have been invested in it. It has failed because the beneficiaries of the numerous transformation plans and initiatives did not receive adequate training and support to help them succeed. This is also why transformation will continue to fail. It seems as if all of government’s energy is going into making an unnecessary change to the Constitution, which will supposedly make it easier to transfer land to black people to ultimately accelerate transformation and economic empowerment. While I find the broader economic and socio-economic impact that expropriation without compensation will have on South Africa very worrying, my main concern is that the sudden transfer of vast amounts of land from the haves to…

Risk, and of course uncertainty, are quintessential features of agricultural production. As a result, both these terms are essential to any decision-making framework in any business, including farming. At every stage of a farming business or agricultural production system (ranging from cultivation to growing, harvesting, sorting, grading, packaging, marketing and beyond), risk is inherent irrespective of the farming enterprise in which you are involved. On a daily basis, agripreneurs and farmers are confronted with various types of risks, including production risk. These occur as a result of uncontrollable events, such as unfavourable weather conditions, which often lead to uncertainty in the performance of crops and livestock. Another type of risk facing operators in the agriculture sector every day is the market or price risk. This is associated with changes in…

The successful privatisation of the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) would go a long way to stimulating the red meat industry in that country, said Ray van Rooyen, ABSA’s head of agribusiness for the rest of Africa. BMC was established in 1965 and was solely responsible for the slaughter and marketing of all beef exported from Botswana, he said. “The decision to privatise has for all practical reasons already been taken, but the implementation is still a long way off. “Plans are afoot to privatise 50% of the commission to increase efficiencies and to improve operational management.” According to Van Rooyen, the aim was to make the 50% private shareholding available to Botswana’s red meat producers, as at present BMC was practically the only offtaker in the market. He said the…

Reduced supply levels on both the global and local markets are boosting wine prices, and have resulted in an upswing in local wine production. “[Improved] profitability is translating into a much higher demand for advisory services than we have seen in years, specifically relating to the establishment of new vines,” said Francois Viljoen, the manager of Vinpro’s vineyard consultation team. “The demand for new plant material has also already outstripped supply for the year.” Nevertheless, many farmers are still struggling to make ends meet. Charl du Plessis, CEO of Orange River Cellars, explained that the 10% increase in local prices, and the 30% to 50% increase in bulk export prices, were not enough to offset low yields on some farms. “Production on some farms in the Northern Cape is down…

A Food Standards Agency survey among consumers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland found that food hygiene was the top food safety concern for UK consumers when eating out. This was followed by chemical contamination (30%), food additives (29%), and food poisoning (28%). Other issues of concern were the amount of sugar in food (55%), food wastage (51%), food prices (43%), and animal welfare (42%). In addition, only 41% of respondents said they trusted that food producers and retailers had their best interests at heart. However, 60% said they believed the food industry was regulated fairly well, with this belief the strongest in Northern Ireland at 77%, compared with 59% in England and 57% in Wales. The majority of respondents reported that they cooked or prepared food for themselves (90%),…

In general, members of the South African agricultural industry are ignorant about the legal requirements pertaining to the management of asbestos structures on farms. This was according to Albie Klein, a registered asbestos contractor, who said risk assessment of asbestos constructions such as workers’ quarters, sheds and packhouses was of the utmost importance to protect both human and animal health. “It is vital that the industry educates itself about this [hazard]. It is, for example, illegal to remove or [repair] asbestos [structures] without an official risk assessment [being done]. It is of the essence that landowners familiarise themselves with the dangers of asbestos,” he said. Klein added that landowners were, by law, required to keep an inventory of all asbestos structures and items on their lands. Registered asbestos contractors needed…

The preliminary estimate for the area planted to wheat this season has increased by about 22%, or 13 400ha, to 505 000ha. This was compared with the 491 600ha planted the previous season, according to the latest Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) report. Dr Francois Koekemoer, research and development director of seed company Sensako, told Farmer’s Weekly that planting for the area earmarked for wheat in the Western Cape had been completed. However, planting had not been completed in the eastern Free State and other large production regions. Koekemoer said the current wheat price was average, but acceptable. However, Western Cape farmers who had been forced to increase their fungicide and pesticide use due to production conditions had expressed concern that they could not generate profit at the current price. Free…

Most women in Africa make a living from agriculture, and therefore practical solutions such as biotechnology can help them use the land effectively to eradicate poverty and malnutrition, according to the Pan-African Parliament’s ambassador for food security, Dr Brylyne Chitsunge. Addressing delegates at the Women in Agriculture workshop, hosted by the US Department of Agriculture in Pretoria recently, she said the Eastern Cape was one of the provinces with the highest levels of poverty. “I’ve started a project in the Qunu village outside Mthatha for household farming in partnership with other stakeholders, which will mostly help women,” said Chitsunge. “We will be delivering biotechnology maize and offering assistance with maize planting to the community. “The people are always ready, all they need is help. In the future, we need to…

In any new industry, entrepreneurs tend to start small, trying and testing all types of technologies to identify the most effective. In aquaculture, this phenomenon manifests itself as backyard systems, where a wide variance in design and complexity is weighed against cost and economic profitability. This is unfortunately where the wheels often fall off due to the need for convenience rather than performance. The problem lies in the concept of ‘economy of scale’: any intensive livestock rearing system has to be a minimum size to be sustainable. In intensive chicken production, for example, a 100m-long building housing 15 000 chickens might be an efficient system; trying to raise 10 chickens per square metre in a backyard to be profitable certainly is not. Small, intensive fish-rearing systems are similar. SMALL CANNOT…

When asked what she puts her success down to, Mbali Nwoko, who launched her Green Terrace crop farming business in 2016, says her curiosity and determination to farm enabled her to create partnerships in the sector. These have ensured a bright future for her young business. THE ROAD TO FARMING Before pursuing a career in agriculture, Nwoko was the co-founder and managing director of a recruitment agency. In 2016, just three years after starting the business, she made a drastic career change after being introduced to farming by a friend who had also recently started his own farming business. In addition to learning about his operation, she discovered that there were opportunities for new entrants in agriculture, and so began carrying out her own research. She then registered her own…

Your first flight For a beginner on the drone market, the RYZE TECH TELLO DRONE is a small, but powerful, drone. It is manufactured by a new start-up, but features flight stabilisation technology and software for coding a flight path. It also features a 5MP camera, with a 720p video recorder that sends the video directly to your smartphone. It has a flight time of about 13 to 15 minutes, and can be controlled directly via the Tello app, or with a supported Bluetooth remote controller. The transmission range is up to 100m. The drone can also take off from and land in your hand, features fail-safe landing, and can perform flight flips. For a drone of this size, flight quality is impressive. However, the smaller body size means that…

GRANDAD MANDELA by Zazi, Ziwelene & Zindzi Mandela (Lincoln, R170) Echoing a beautiful call-and-response hymn, this tribute to Nelson Mandela from his daughter Zindzi and her two children, Zazi and Ziwelene, is simply told in the format of ‘Tell us about…’ questions. Consciously or not, it urges the young generation to think of their own parents’ and grandparents’ experiences and, in John F Kennedy’s words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Illustrator Sean Qualls’s spare style is suffused with emotion and saturated with colour, enhancing the story and helping it launch many more questions. OUTSIDERS by Lyndall Gordon (Virago, R195) Cape Town-born and raised Gordon is based at the University of Oxford, where she is…

In the first week of August, the level of the Kouga Dam in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality stood at less than 7%, while the combined levels of the dams serving the area, including Port Elizabeth, were only at 18,2% of capacity. Farmers in the Gamtoos Valley as well as the Hankey and Patensie districts were also in dire straits, according to the chairperson of the Gamtoos Farmers’ Association, Petrus du Preez. These farmers had been faced with drastic water restrictions for the past 14 months. In 2017, the farmers had been restricted to using only 40% of their annual water quota of approximately 8 000m³/ha. This year they were further restricted to using only 20% of the quota, or about 1 600m³/ha. Du Preez said the picture at ground…

Over the past four years, Aerobotics, an aerial data-analytics company, has developed a ‘smart’ scouting platform to help South African fruit farmers identify pests and diseases early. According to James Paterson, CEO of the company, about 40% of the South African macadamia industry and 20% of the country’s citrus growers were already using the software, with wine grape production also recently included. Paterson said the system used drone technology to record data from orchards with a camera that could observe the environment in a similar fashion to the human eye, but also used a multispectral camera that operated at frequencies invisible to the human eye to detect stress. “We have used machine learning to teach the [computer program] to identify stressed trees, as well as trees suffering from phytophthora [disease].…

BRAZIL Brazilian researchers have found that manipulating the ScGAI gene in the culm or hollow stem of the sugar cane plant can boost yield. The culm’s sugar storage capacity is physically limited, restricting the volume of sucrose and biomass that can be obtained from the crop for sugar and ethanol production. According to Prof Marcelo Menossi of the University of Campinas in Brazil, manipulating the activity of this gene can substantially increase culm volume. AUSTRALIA Australian lamb producers have been told that the ‘bigger is better’ concept may risk under-supply to some of Australia’s most valuable lamb markets. Meat and Livestock Australia’s chief marketing officer, Lisa Sharp, told producers at the LambEx convention that they needed to be aware of consumer demand for lighter, leaner lambs. She said the trend…

Livestock owners across the country are being urged to take preventative measures against a disease that could decimate calves or lambs, especially those with compromised immune systems. This was the message from Dr Liezel Wasserman, a vet in the Free State, speaking at a recent FAMACHA Sheep Day presented by the Free State Red Meat Producers’ Organisation and the National Wool Growers’ Association in Rosendal. She warned about what she termed the emergence of “a Cryptosporidium/E.coli complex” disease she had observed over the last five years. Wasserman said she first became aware of the disease, which presents with yellowish or grey diarrhoea, in 2014. Since then she had learnt of at least 15 000 lambs and 5 000 calves succumbing to the disease, with cases being reported across the country.…

Farmers in the summer rainfall region are being urged to vaccinate their animals against insect- and tick-transmitted diseases that flare up during the rainy season. Dr Faffa Malan, manager of the Ruminant Veterinary Association of South Africa, said farmers should consult their vets to identify the disease threats relevant to their production regions. They should then draw up a vaccination plan to determine at what age and at what time the animals needed to be vaccinated against particular diseases. The plan also needed to take production practices, such as reproduction, shearing, calving and weaning seasons into account, and should be re-evaluated regularly to ensure that it remained applicable. Malan identified bluetongue disease in sheep, Rift Valley fever in cattle and sheep, lumpy skin disease in cattle, bovine ephemeral fever (three-day…

Correct feeding, as well as careful management of piglets’ growing environment, will ensure that they are productive when they are mature, according to Alteli de Villiers, technical and genetic services manager for pig genetics company, PIC South Africa. Speaking at the recent Agri Gauteng Ekspo, held at Onderstepoort near Pretoria, De Villiers said pigs needed differently constituted feed rations at different life stages. Creep feed, containing cooked maize, was the most expensive feed phase, but was needed as it prepared piglets’ stomachs and guts for feed that had higher roughage content. If not given this easily digestible feed, villi that absorbed nutrients in the gut would become ‘injured’ and would never recover, thereby hampering the pig’s growth and production capabilities. Creep feed needed to be provided one week before weaning…

Hoedspruit Hub Agricultural Training Centre in Mpumalanga is a social enterprise that provides training courses for commercial farms, as well as community upliftment and poverty alleviation programmes. Carien Taute, the business manager, says: “We apply commercial strategies to improve the financial, social and environmental well-being of the communities we’re in. We thus aim to maximise social impact alongside profits for our external shareholders.” Anri Manderson, the social enterprise manager, adds that the difference between an NGO and a social enterprise is that the latter must be run as a profitable business that can sustain all the projects. “The commercial side of the business that trains farmworkers ensures that we can carry on with our social development side.” Social development activities include a youth programme to introduce people between the ages…

To assess the impact that compaction has had on the water infiltration of your soil, perform the following simple test. Take a clear, 2l plastic cooldrink bottle, remove the cap and cut off the bottom. Insert the bottle into the soil, spout-side down. Fill the bottle with a pre-measured amount of water, and record the time it takes for the water to empty into the soil. Repeat this test, using exactly the same volume of water each time, at various locations across the land, choosing areas with clear track marks as well as areas without visible track marks. The longer it takes for the water to run into the soil, the more compacted the soil. By recording the time it takes for the water to infiltrate into the soil at…

To make this comforting casserole for four hungry visitors, you will need: 1,2kg of lamb chops 5 anchovy fillets in olive oil 6 cloves of garlic 1 onion 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil 1 can of tomatoes 2 tablespoons of tomato concentrate 300ml heavy red wine 250g of oyster or big brown mushrooms 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary (use about half this quantity if dried) Salt and freshly ground black pepper on demand 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan 8 sprigs of fresh parsley 10ml of Worcestershire sauce 1 But first, the meat. Ask your butcher to thinly cut the chops. Leave all the meat on the bone as this improves the flavour. Crush, peel and macerate the garlic by pounding the cloves in a mortar with a pestle or by…

SkyView Free is a sleek, modern stargazing app named Google Play Store Editors’ Choice in 2017. It is also available on the iTunes Store as ‘SkyView Lite’. This beautiful and intuitive stargazing app uses your phone’s camera to identify celestial objects by day or night. No need to be an astronomer to find stars and constellations in the sky! The app will guide you to their location and identify them for you. ADVANCED, YET EASY-TO-USE ‘MAP’ The app uses augmented reality, a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on the user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. Simply point your phone at the sky, and the app will identify stars, the planets in our solar system, distant galaxies, and constellations. It can also be used to…

27 TO 29 AUGUST BIO Africa Convention 2018 THE INAUGURAL BIO AFRICA CONVENTION, ORGANISED BY AFRICABIO, WILL PROVIDE A PLATFORM FOR DIALOGUE AND DISCUSSION WITH STAKEHOLDERS IN THE GLOBAL BIOTECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT. CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & EXPOS 4 TO 6 SEPTEMBER No-Till Conference, ATKV Drakensville, Bergville. For more information, email Richard Findlay at richardfindlayntc2@gmail.com . 20 TO 21 SEPTEMBER AGRI 5 Commodities Workshop and Expo, East London Showgrounds. For more information, email info@atoneworks.co.za . 25 TO 27 SEPTEMBER 56th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa, Somerset West. For more information, visit centeqevents.wixsite.com/aeasa2018. 9 TO 12 OCTOBER Second African Congress on Conservation Agriculture, Johannesburg. For more information, visit africacacongress.org . COURSES & TRAINING 21 TO 23 AUGUST Foundations for Farming…

I previously recounted the reasons behind the Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies’s withdrawal from the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act’s (AGOA) poultry rebate provision as prescribed under item (i) of Annexure 1.1. As pointed out, the increase in the tariffs for aluminium and steel from South Africa amounted to a partial withdrawal from AGOA benefits and therefore evoked a retraction of the AGOA poultry rebate. This argument seems pretty straightforward, and South Africa’s special envoy on AGOA, Dr Faizel Ismail, agreed with this viewpoint. So why is Davies reluctant to act on it? There are two possible reasons. Firstly, it could be that Davies wants to give the bilateral negotiations between South Africa and the US a chance. Although South Africa is yet to receive the exemptions…

New tractor sales for the period 1 January to 31 July were, on average, 10,5% up year-on-year. The South African Agricultural Machinery Association (SAAMA) reported that total tractor sales to the end of July stood at 3 930 units compared with the 3 557 units sold during the same period in 2017. In its latest monthly report on tractor and combine harvester sales, SAAMA said that at 525 units, tractor sales for July were 3,3% up on July 2017’s sales of 508 units. SAAMA chairperson, Greg Cadman, said tractor sales remained “quite buoyant, in a market [that] is still very competitive”. “The recent strength of the market has been boosted by sales of smaller tractors in nontraditional areas, outside the main grain-growing areas.” Wandile Sihlobo, head of agribusiness intelligence at…

The high incidence of food fraud being committed both locally and internationally has reportedly prompted the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) to register ‘Scotch whisky’ as a trademark in South Africa. Being one of the first foreign products to seek this kind of trademark protection in South Africa, law enforcement against counterfeit products being sold or passed off as Scotch whisky would become easier, a statement by SWA said. Spokesperson for SWA, Louise Gowans, told Farmer’s Weekly that while 52 million 750ml bottles of Scotch whisky had been exported to South Africa in 2017, there was no data available on how many counterfeit whisky products were being sold on the market. Whisky exports to South Africa had increased 20,7% to £144 million (about R2,6 billion) in 2017, with nearly 100 bottles…

It has been announced that the Northern Cape Provincial Veterinary Laboratory in Kimberley in the Northern Cape has been admitted as a member of the South African Veterinary Council (SAVC). Following accreditation by the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) more than a year ago, the laboratory has been providing veterinary services to livestock owners in the province and further afield, such as conducting tests for diseases, including brucellosis, on samples from suspected cases in other provinces. Spokesperson for the Northern Cape Department of Rural, Environmental and Agricultural Development, Phemelo Manankong, said the department was very proud of the work being done by officials at the laboratory. According to Manankong, the laboratory had been called on to test samples from cases in provinces where state laboratories were not accredited. President…

Latest estimates have indicated that the Kalahari Ohangwena II aquifer in northern Namibia holds double the amount of water than was initially estimated, according to Bertram Schwartz, deputy director of geohydrology at the Namibian Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. Recent reports indicated that, conservatively calculated, the aquifer held 20 billion cubic metres of water, distributed over an area of 5 170km2 . The aquifer was currently being utilised by the Namibian bulk water supplier, Namwater, for domestic water supply to the town of Eenhana and surroundings at a rate of approximately 0,5 million cubic metres/year. The abstractable reserves allowed for abstraction of 1,5 million cubic metres/year. “The aquifer has been earmarked for domestic water supply and small, intensive gardening projects, but not for large-scale irrigation,” Schwartz added. The source…

We seem to have lost the plot with the smartphone. Using it has become a reflex as natural as breathing. At the slightest digital twitch, or triggered by some other compulsion, the smartphone user instantly disengages from the task at hand and reaches for the phone. The task is forgotten, sometimes forever. If it is resumed, many minutes will pass before the person has refocused properly on it. In their 2007 paper, ‘Technology and Information Worker Productivity’, Sinan Aral and Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Marshall van Alstyne of Boston University, found that while modern information technology initially increased productivity, there was eventually a decrease in performance and a higher incidence of error. The deluge of information and constant interruption creates a mental fog that drives…

One of the biggest barriers that females in rural communities face when trying to climb the corporate ladder is the surrounding community’s traditional view on gender roles. “Men don’t always want to take instruction from females,” explains Anri Manderson. “Having a younger person in a position of authority is also problematic because, culturally, the oldest person in a group is the leader. “We’ve learnt that the best way to handle this is to approach the elder in the community and have him speak to his people. He needs to explain that women must be respected in the same way as men if they’re in a higher position.”…

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This is the fourth article in my series on what farmers and market agents expect from one another. It covers a crucial item in a market agent’s arsenal of personal selling qualities: the ability to understand both the product and the market. In other words, a farmer wants to feel assured that the salesperson can put a fair value on the product given its quality and the particular market conditions at that time. MORE COMPLICATED THAN IT SEEMS! Cynical farmers might say that they want to get the highest price regardless of the circumstances. It doesn’t work that way. The agent has to take into account the conditions on the market on any given day. He or she also has to assess the quality of the produce on offer and…

I remember legendary TV chef Keith Floyd saying that if a wine was not good enough to drink, then it certainly shouldn’t be used to cook with. “Waste not, want not” is something else I heard said while someone emptied the remnants of a bottle of oxidised Merlot into the Bolognese sauce. As much as I’m against wasting, particularly the wasting of decent wine, I’m with Mr Floyd here: don’t cook with a wine you won’t enjoy drinking, as the flavours will definitely come through in the dish. In the case of this rich and comforting casserole that has a dollop of wine in it, just drink the same wine. The bottle is already open anyway and we don’t want to waste it, do we? I used the Lanzerac Pinotage…

There are many common signs of low-grade magnesium deficiency. They include: brain fog, lack of focus and concentration, insomnia, not feeling rested even after a good night’s sleep, feeling ‘tired but wired’, restless leg syndrome, frequent muscle cramps, inability to handle stress, salt cravings, constipation, addiction to caffeine, being easily startled, anxiety or panic attacks, feeling weak and tired after exercise, low blood pressure, low blood sugar, frequent headaches (including migraines), and heart palpitations. Taking a magnesium supplement can alleviate these problems, as magnesium has significant anti-stress, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It normalises neurotransmitters and stress hormones, increases neuroplasticity, helps balance blood sugar levels, and removes heavy metals. An effective form of magnesium that can be used transdermally to reduce inflammation in muscles is magnesium oil spray, which should be…