This will likely be a year of recovery for SA agriculture.
Much of the country benefited from the La Niña rains last year. However, the recovery may be weaker than initially anticipated.
The La Niña rains were late in some regions, such as Delmas in Mpumalanga, various regions of Limpopo and parts of the Free State. This added strain on the grazing veld and delayed summer crop planting.
Still, the overall agricultural production conditions promise to be better than in 2024, which was characterised by the midsummer drought and animal disease challenge.
SA has progressed notably in controlling the spread of foot-and-mouth and other animal diseases such as avian influenza and African swine fever. This puts the livestock and poultry subsector in an ideal position to rebuild — provided we see a sustained recovery in the grazing veld across the country and yellow maize production, a primary feed.
Better dam levels and a stable electricity supply for irrigation will continue to benefit the horticulture subsector — fruit, vegetables and floriculture — and set SA’s agriculture in an ideal position for recovery in 2025. But the year we are leaving behind was challenging for the sector.
If I can reflect on critical events and themes that dominated the SA agricultural scene, five stood out for me. Combined, they resulted in a mixed performance across the different subsectors in 2024.
We started the 2023-24 production season (the 2024 calendar year) aware that it was likely to be a mild El Niño year, but the timing was uncertain at the start of the season.
The consensus from various early forecasts was that it would intensify from March onwards. Theoretically, this would not be the worst timing for farmers as the crop would have passed the pollination stages requiring moisture. As a result, we assumed that SA would still achieve a decent harvest under such conditions.
Farmers planted slightly bigger areas of grains and oilseeds for the 2023-24 summer season than the previous one. The good rains at the start of the season were a major incentive to do so, along with relatively higher agricultural commodity prices. Indeed, for the first few months of the season SA seemed to be in for a decent summer grains and oilseed harvest.
However, conditions changed for the worse from February to the end of March 2024. The country did not receive any meaningful rains throughout this period, and there was also a severe heatwave. This resulted in significant crop failure and financial losses to farmers.
Animal disease continued to be a major challenge for farmers last year, with various cases of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, African swine fever in pigs, and avian influenza in poultry.
By the end of the season, SA’s 2023-24 summer grains and oilseed harvest was down 23% from the previous season at 15.4-million tonnes. The consequence of this crop failure is the tight grain supply and higher commodity prices we are now experiencing.
Animal disease continued to be a major challenge for farmers last year, with various cases of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, African swine fever in pigs, and avian influenza in poultry.
While animal disease outbreaks are not unique to SA and are common across the world, SA’s challenges have intensified in the recent past.
In 2022 six of SA’s nine provinces reported foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks, the first time in the country’s history that the disease had spread this wide. Livestock and poultry farming account for roughly half of agriculture’s annual gross value added.
The challenging place the country found itself in has prompted government and industry stakeholders to increase their focus on strengthening farm biosecurity controls and surveillance.
Other interventions that are under way include efforts to improve SA’s veterinary and related support services (mainly the laboratories) that deal with vaccine production needs.
On October 25 the department of agriculture released even more positive news, which we believe will further support the recovery path of the industry.
The department announced that “the foot and mouth disease outbreak, which occurred during 2021-2022, has been successfully resolved in the North West, Free State, Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces. These provinces ... have now completed comprehensive testing of animals on quarantined farms. The results indicate that the foot and mouth disease virus is no longer present.”
This is admirable progress and further supports SA’s ambition of being a global player in red meat exports. Addressing the biosecurity challenges is essential for a successful path to the export markets.
There were also positive developments in SA’s agriculture in 2024. One which is not necessarily agriculture-specific is the improvement in electricity supply. This contributed to the robust performance of the horticulture subsector.
This year’s focus should remain on opening export markets, improving the network industries, and improving municipality performance.
When one considers the dependence of SA’s agriculture on horticulture it is always worth highlighting that all of it — fruits, vegetables and floriculture — depends on irrigation, which requires an adequate and reliable power supply.
In crucial field crops, roughly 20% of maize, 15% of soybean, 34% of sugar cane and nearly half of wheat are produced under irrigation. Electricity is also heavily used in various processing activities related to red meat, poultry, piggery, wool and dairy production.
Similarly, agribusinesses and other food-producing businesses are heavy users of electricity, as are various downstream processing activities such as milling, bakeries, abattoirs, wine processing, packaging and animal vaccine production.
Logistics infrastructure efficiency remains a primary concern for the farming sector. However, the ongoing collaboration between Transnet, private industry and various logistical organisations helps ensure the continuous flow of products, even if there are delays in specific periods.
The gains of this collaboration are visible in the export figures. For example, SA’s cumulative agricultural export value for the first three quarters of 2024 was up 4% from 2023 at $10.55bn. This reflects an uptick in the volume of various agricultural exports and the price surge in some products.
The top exported products by value include citrus, nuts, maize, apples and pears, wine, fruit juices, sugar, dates, figs, avocados and mangos, berries and grapes.
Finally, the commitment to policy continuity after the formation of the government of national unity (GNU) was also a noteworthy development for SA’s agriculture. Ordinarily, when a new government begins its term there would be a temptation to introduce new policies and programmes. At times, such practices are justified.
However, in SA’s agriculture the agriculture & agroprocessing master plan has already been formulated and embraced by business, labour, government and other social partners. There was therefore no need to introduce new policy — continuity and a sharper focus on the implementation of existing policy and programmes would be more useful.
This is precisely what the seventh administration has committed to. This approach has saved the sector valuable time, and efforts can now be channelled towards implementing various programmes and focusing on the sector’s growth.
This is partly why the sentiment in the sector improved notably in recent months. While there were numerous other developments in the sector, the five points outlined above were most notable and cross-cutting in various value chains in 2024.
As we start 2025 there is renewed optimism in the sector on the back of relatively better rainfall and improvements in the animal disease control front. This may boost output.
From a policy perspective, this year’s focus should remain on opening export markets, improving the network industries, and improving municipality performance.
There also needs to be relentless focus on implementing the agriculture & agroprocessing master plan, as it includes relevant and necessary interventions to support inclusive growth in SA agriculture.
• Sihlobo is an agricultural economist.
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