What do the different provinces bring to South African agriculture?

South Africa covers nine biomes, and has everything from desert and Nama Karoo to Forest and the Indian Ocean coastal belt.

A combined offering

South Africa covers nine biomes, and has everything from desert and Nama Karoo to Forest and the Indian Ocean coastal belt. It has a province with a Mediterranean climate and parts that are distinctly tropical. For this reason it would be problematic to decide on which of the nine candidates is the “Breadbasket of South Africa”. A bit like comparing oranges and apples, so to speak. Which is more important – pork or asparagus, litchis or wheat?

We set out the “Agriculture in the Provinces” page to create an awareness among visitors of the combined offering of what South Africa produces, and even those who live in this country will take an interest in seeing what happens in other provinces.

Agricultural information

Some sectors make a task like compiling this page easy. Compliments to the dairy industry, for example. The Milk Producers Organisation (MPO)’s Lacto Data sets out dairy farming and processing information in a methodical way: stats, pie charts … it’s all there!

Other sectors hold their cards very close to their chests and it is like pulling hen’s teeth, as the saying goes. Sometimes it takes an overseas report, say from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Foreign Agricultural Service, to know what is happening here.

There are annual publications like the Department of Agriculture (DALRRD)’s Abstract of Agricultural Statistics. This gives a provincial breakdown for mostly grain and oilseed crops. Other commodities are dealt with only on a national level. Livestock numbers are dealt with in a bi-annual newsletter. When DALRRD is midway between two different websites it becomes tricky.

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