Written By Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist at Agbiz
Misrepresentation of South Africa and its farming matters in global affairs does no one any good.
South Africa’s farming sector faces its own challenges, including animal diseases and logistical inefficiencies. These are immensely costly to farmers. There is work underway to tackle these, and it just needs to be accelerated.
For example, the Department of Agriculture can do much more to accelerate cattle vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease.
Equally, Transnet can increase its efforts to ensure greater efficiency at the Port of Cape Town. In fact, we started 2025 with excellent momentum, which significantly supported agricultural exports in the first three quarters. It was in the last quarter that we began experiencing challenges that have proved costly to the table grape and stone fruit industries.
But consistently pushing the narrative that farmers are under siege is costly to all.
We have much good news to share with the world, and can focus more on that. And the reality of the South African farming sector is that it has thrived since the dawn of democracy, having more than doubled in value, and exports are likely to have crossed the record US$14 billion in 2025.
South Africa is now the only African country in the top 40 global agricultural exporters. We are also food secure at the national level, the most food-secure in sub-Saharan Africa.
We have a lot more to be proud of and build on.
This article first appeared at https://wandile.substack.com/p/south-africas-agriculture-has-a-lot
Photo: George Becker on Pexels
