Agriculture 2023: Surging costs threaten sustainability

Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza tabled a R17.20-billion budget for her department in the 2023/24 financial year in May 2023, including transfers to provincial agriculture departments and relevant entities. Her Budget Vote speech underscores the imperative of food security, spatial planning, rural development, and land redistribution, highlighting the sector's role in addressing historical injustices and reinstating land rights. Didiza asserts that the enduring impacts of Apartheid and colonialism have resulted in inequalities in the distribution of resources, infrastructure, and avenues for advancement within the agricultural sector. In this context, Creamer Media’s ‘Agriculture 2023’ report considers key sectoral components including an overview of the market, which delves into production, exports, income, expenditure, costs and prices. The business environment section addresses logistics, loadshedding, and institutions such as the Land Bank. Labour and transformation are also crucial considerations. The report also outlines measures such as antidumping duties, ongoing land reform efforts, and the introduction of a sugar tax in the policy development section. Precision technology also emerges as a critical theme, with a focus on airborne agriculture, climate change and regenerative agriculture.