Agriculture: The Silver Lining Of A Difficult Year

Leaders in organised agriculture all agree that the past year has been particularly tough. They concur, however, that the outlook for the sector in 2021 is positive, although a number of challenges will need to be overcome.

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Putting up a united front

Dr Theo de Jager, president of the World Farmers’ Organisation, outlines some of the specific problems farmers faced in 2020, and the importance of the UN Food Systems Summit to be held in 2021.

The past year will be remembered as a year of disasters. Apart from COVID- 19, South African farmers have been faced with severe droughts in the western and southern production regions, while fires in North West, the Free State and the Northern Cape destroyed vast areas of grazing, killing cattle, game and small-stock and ruining fences. However, the worst disaster threatening farmers in South Africa is in financing; the Land Bank was downgraded twice during 2020 by credit rating agencies. The bank is now well into ‘junk’ status, and with government being in no position to bail it out properly again, direct clients of the bank, as well as those agribusinesses that are financed by the bank, have been left in dire straits. Despite this, agriculture is the best-performing economic sector of the year!

Some disasters were human-made; these include the destruction of markets; the disruption of income on farms; and job losses in the tobacco, wildlife, and wine industries, which will suffer for years to come due to government’s irrational lockdown regulations. The farming operations of hundreds of land reform beneficiaries remain uncertain after government advertised state land as being available for reallocation to other aspirant farmers. Poor governance has been as much of a challenge in 2020 for farmers in South Africa as natural disasters!