The Sona love letter to SA’s agric sector

The South African farming sector is resilient. We have faced numerous challenges in the past and the sector has powered through — with high costs for farming family businesses and agribusinesses at times — but powered through nonetheless. We pride ourselves on being a sector that is among the top 40 global agricultural exporters, the only African country on that list, ensuring that South Africa is the most food-secure country in sub-Saharan Africa, at least at a national level.

The sector has more than doubled in size since 1994. The agricultural sector and its value chain employ more than a million people and generate numerous positive spillovers to agricultural towns and interlinked businesses. But for this momentum to be sustained, we need to address the basics, which pose significant problems for the sector.

Rural crime, inept municipal service delivery, crumbling water infrastructure, the need for additional export markets and animal diseases are among the key problems facing the sector. Thankfully, some of these were highlighted in the State of the Nation Address (Sona). These mentions are important because they provide a roadmap for the government’s programme of work and priorities.

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For example, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated, among other things: “We have made progress in improving the performance of our ports and freight rail lines, steadily increasing the volume of goods that we move in and out of our country. We have restored our passenger rail system. More and more commuters are now able to travel to work on new, locally made trains, significantly reducing their transport costs.

We are investing across our country in roads, bridges, rail lines, ports, dams, wind and solar farms.” These logistics improvements are key to sustaining the agricultural sector. We cannot talk about boosting exports without a clearer focus on port efficiency and on improving road and railway conditions. Organised business, organised agriculture and various stakeholders have been part of collaborative efforts with Transnet to improve the ports.

There remains much work to be done on roads. Many agricultural towns have crumbling roads that impose high costs on agribusinesses and local farming. Municipalities and provincial governments will need to heed the President’s message and follow through on the road infrastructure aspect; it remains key to supporting agricultural and many other manufacturing businesses.

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