Agribusiness / Food in South Africa
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SOUTH AFRICA, 2017/07/31
South Africa’s food and beverages industry is one of a handful of key agri-processing segments set to benefit from a new national-led investment incentive scheme.
Launched at the end of June, the Department of Trade and Industry’s Agro-Processing Support Scheme (APSS) offers cost-sharing grants to be awarded to the price of 20-30% of basic investments.
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BOTSWANA, 2017/07/17
Right presently, 14 million people across southern Africa face going hungry due to the prolonged drought brought on by the strongest El Niño in 50 years.
South Africa will import half of its maize and in Zimbabwe as a lot of as 75 % of crops have been abandoned in the worst-hit areas. With extreme weather, such as failed rains, and drought projected to become additional likely as a result of climate change, some farmers are by presently taking matters into their own hands, and pro-actively diversifying the crops they grow.
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CHINA, 2017/07/09
The unprecedented outbreak of famine early this year in Africa and the Middle East can be traced to conflict as the root cause. Can China step in to help mitigate the calamity through its Belt and Road initiative?
Famine broke out in South Sudan in March 2017. At around the same time, the United Nations announced that Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen were as well on the verge of being hit by long draught, putting around 20 million at risk of starvation. The UN described this as an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and appealed to the international community to donate US$4.4 billion — with little success.
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BOTSWANA, 2017/03/12
People are currently starving to death in four nations, and 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months The U.N. children's agency UNICEF said on Tuesday nearly 1.4 million children were at "imminent risk" of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.
Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. People are by presently starving to death in all four nations, and the World Food Programme says additional than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months.
The United Nations defines famine as at the same time as at least 20 % of households in an area face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 %, and two or additional people per 10,000 are dying per day.
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SOUTH AFRICA, 2016/01/06
Fewer than half of the country’s maize farmers were able to plant because of the drought, placing the country’s food security in peril.
This week is make or break next farmers in maize-growing areas who hoped for a wet Christmas were disappointed.
Maize farmers in the western areas of the country can, according to agriculture experts, still try to plant by Thursday, at the new, but there is no rain in sight.
Of the 1.37 million hectares earmarked for white maize, less than half of it – 584 500ha – has been planted, according to statistics obtained from Free National Maize (FSM), a company that finances farmers to produce grain.
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SOUTH AFRICA, 2015/12/14
Cleaning up about 11 500 tons of canola seeds following the collapse of 14 silos at the Sentraal-Suid Koöperasie (SSK) in Swellendam started on Monday morning.
It was expected to take about four weeks. The 20-year-old steel structures at the agricultural co-operative toppled like dominoes on December 1.
CEO Ernst Pelser said the collapsed silos would be removed from the site and rebuilt once all the seeds had been collected.
"The procedure is being overseen by structural engineers and the operation will ensure that the best and safest methods are used," he said.
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UNITED STATES, 2015/11/16
At the same time as it comes to US poultry, President Obama is picking the wrong fight - he should be working to improve the sector, not export our pathology.
The US and South Africa have been engaged in a slow-burn chicken war for years. US exporters have been frustrated by restrictions that South Africa has put on US poultry. It was a significant issue in negotiations around the renewal of the African trade preferences bill - the African Increase and Opportunities Act (AGOA) - in the US Congress, with some "chicken-hawks" threatening to drop South Africa from the benefits of US trade preferences. Under pressure, the South African poultry industry negotiated a transaction with the US industry to accept 650,000 tons of US poultry exports, and South Africa was included in the AGOA renewal. It seemed the problem was solved.
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SOUTH AFRICA, 2015/02/13
The West Coast Rock Lobster (WCRL) mortalities have exceeded 200-tons as 80-tons of WCRL were washed out in Eland's Bay on Wednesday morning.
This as a result of the harmful algal bloom (HAB) that was detected on the West Coast additional than a week ago.
This pushes the total tonnage of mortalities in the HAB to over 200-tons. Last weekend, nearly 30-tons of WCRL washed out or got stranded in Eland's Bay and around 6-tons were rescued during the clean-up operation.
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SOUTH AFRICA, 2013/01/23
Strike is over in the W Cape - for presently. Cosatu W Cape will be calling for the Cosatu Chief Office to drive and coordinate a National Strike against Agri-SA and their bad members.
The disputes, strikes and protests in the W Cape farming communities have changed the face of agriculture forever. It has set the scene for workers and communities to fight the apartheid slave conditions on the farms and in communities across the country.
