Top five trends in SA farming in 2021

Farmer’s Weekly editor Denene Erasmus looks at some of the global and local farming trends that shaped the way producers in South Africa farmed and did business in 2021.

- Denene Erasmus

Trend 1: Sustainable farming

What was a new and unconventional approach to farming a few years ago has become increasingly mainstream as more farmers adopt sustainable farming practices such as no-till and regenerative farming with the focus, predominantly, on improving soil health.

According to independent agricultural consultant Dr Louis du Pisani (FW, 19 March), climate change and global warming are having a profound and permanent effect on livestock farming globally. Extreme weather events, failure to respond to climate change, and biodiversity loss are now rated among the greatest dangers to humanity on the planet. To face these challenges, says Du Pisani, livestock farmers will have to become more sustainable, more resilient and less prone to climatic variations by implementing regenerative agriculture.

In livestock farming, this can be achieved through better veld management, which includes grazing practices that support above-ground plant diversity and proper management of bush encroachment and alien vegetation. Plant biodiversity and veld condition are directly connected; as plant biodiversity of the veld improves, veld condition improves, and vice versa.

In crop farming, farmers such as brothers Gert and Peet Janse van Rensburg, who produce vegetables on the family farm Langplaas in North West, are proving that it is possible to grow vegetables on a commercial scale using regenerative farming principles (