Grain SA on the road to improving circumstances for local grain farmers

Glenneis Kriel recently attended Grain SA's regional meeting in Moorreesburg, Western Cape, where the industry body summed up its activities over the past year.

- Glenneis Kriel

While 35% of grain industry levy contributions around the world are W voluntary, an average of 80% to 90% of contributions collected by Grain SA from different regions in the Western Cape are voluntary.

This was according to Derek Mathews, chairperson of Grain SA, who spoke at the industry body's recent regional meeting in Moorreesburg.

According to him, the success of levy collections in the province could be ascribed to the fact that farmers there had a strong sense of community.

They also had first-hand experience of the benefits of working together and the involvement of businesses in collecting the levies upon first delivery of the grain.

Mathews added that Grain SA had been in discussions with businesses in other provinces, and good progress had been made in the Free State.

However, many of the businesses were unwilling to collect levies in the absence of written authorisation from producers for them to do so.

In the Western Cape, however, businesses deducted levies automatically unless otherwise requested.