Home Featured Farmers can implement self-reliant methods to combat rising costs 

Farmers can implement self-reliant methods to combat rising costs 

by Luqmaan Rawat

Farmers are expecting a good yield of various crops this harvest Photo Scenario.co.za

Johannesburg – As fuel prices rise, affecting the cost of living, farmers are finding it difficult to keep their prices the same. The agricultural industry is now preparing to face unbearable costs as there seems to be no end to rising costs. 

Farmers are expecting a good yield of various crops this harvest. However, South Africa is still dependent on other countries for its wheat. According to Christo van der Rheede, AgriSA Executive Director, farmers are planting more wheat to combat this. 

“Approximately 30% of our national stock comes from that area [Ukraine and Russia]. Our farmers have been quite resilient. In the sense that they are now planting more wheat in parts of the Free State and in the Western Cape. That gives me ease of mind that we won’t run into supply problems.” 

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The buying power of consumers have decreased while farmers’ cost increase 

With the state of the economy and fuel prices rising, the buying power of consumers have decreased. Van der Rheede has thus asked the government to drop the fuel levies to ease the stress on consumers. Farmers are also facing rising costs.  

“AgriSa has called on the government to reduce the fuel levy. A huge part of the price that we pay at the pump per litre is made up of levies and we have called on the government to reduce that. On the other hand, farmers themselves face huge increases in the price of fertiliser because we import a lot of fertiliser from the Ukraine and Russia region. We also have faced huge increases in the price of electricity, the price of diesel and also other price increases in terms of seed and technologies and so forth.” 

There are concerns amongst farmers that if the war continues things will only continue to get worse. Commercial farmers are weighing up the pros and cons. At the moment, the inputs to grow on a large scale are feasible but should the war continue, it would not make business sense to carry on as they won’t be breaking even, said van der Rheede.  

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The reason for moving from importing to planting wheat  

The cost of the war has made farmers change their mind on investing in seed technology for wheat. It is now feasible for farmers to invest in this technology as well as prepare for the effects of climate change. 

“In this country climate change has an impact. There was a time when the Western Cape experienced huge challenges with rain, but they have to a large extent overcome that. The cost of seed technology is a big challenge for the industry. It didn’t make business sense for farmers to invest in the planting of wheat because the inputs just became too expensive. Now, with the rise in the price of wheat, which is in the region of almost R8000 per ton, that makes it more lucrative.”  

South Africa also has a massive area of land that is ready to be used as farmland. These lands now need to be given over to farmers to increase the supply of wheat produced in the country. 

“There is 10 million hectares of land that sits under the custodianship of the government. That land must be utilised for food production. Approximately 5000 farms have been transferred to your emerging farmers. The big question is what is happening on that land? Land reform is absolutely critical. But land reform that does not translate into food production becomes a risk for the entire country.”

It is time for the country to become self-reliant 

Farmers are importing fertilisers at the moment. Due to the war, the costs of importing these goods have increased. It is for this reason that van der Rheede believes it is time to look to a alternative means in South Africa to acquire these resources. 

“In terms of fertilisers we do have Phalaborwa mine where we mine phosphate. We got Sasol where we produce nitrogen. We’ve got Eskom. They can extract sulphur from the sulphur dioxide that is released into the air. Then we have our big municipal waste plants which they can privatise to produce urea. Currently we import urea from China while municipalities dump waste into rivers and pollute our river systems, our dam systems and so forth. It’s just a question of thinking differently and getting people into this space with the right technologies so that we can become more self-reliant.” 

South African farmers have the necessary tools to become self-reliant. It all depends on whether or not the government wants to come to the party. Getting the right people in and becoming self-reliant will allow farmers to keep costs down. This will help to keep food prices down as fuel prices continue to rise. Listen to Inayet Wadee and Christo Van der Rheede here.

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