At an Agricultural Association of SA congress held yesterday, the association’s president, Jaco Minnaar, said the Expropriation Bill passed in the National Assembly undermined farmers’ confidence in their security of land tenure and needed to be referred back to Parliament for it to address these concerns.
He said AgriSA was concerned that the very vague definition of expropriation in the new proposed expropriation bill, as well as in other poorly defined clauses, dId not strengthen property rights and give certainty to the sector.
"AgriSA repeatedly made submissions to government in this regard, and it is extremely worrying that our comments and concerns and thousands of other written and oral submission exposing the flaws in the bill were blatantly ignored in the final bill that is seemingly now being forced through Parliament.
“Even if we have confidence that the current administration will honour its commitment not to use the current bill to undermine food security and stability in the agricultural sector, the bill is simply too broad and ambiguous for us to be able to accept it," he said.
The organisation would "take hands with all like-minded role-players and organisations to defend the constitutionally enshrined and internationally acknowledged right of private property ownership in the interests of our sector and of our country as a whole," Minnaar said.
On a positive note, he said South Africa had seen primary production increase from R224 billion in 2014/2015 to R346 billion in 2020/2021, an increase of about 9% per annum for this period.
“We’ve seen the same and more growth throughout the pandemic period, contributing significantly to the stabilisation of the country’s economy and shielding it from the worst consequences of the sharp decline of GDP in other sectors,” he said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a speech delivered by Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza, said, rather than being viewed as a threat to agriculture, the Expropriation Bill provided clarity on the circumstances in which land may be expropriated and provided clear rules on how, within the prescripts of the Constitution, various actions could be taken to advance the needs of all South Africa’s people.
"The Expropriation Bill that was recently approved by the National Assembly, and which is now before the National Council of Provinces, will assist in speeding up land reform. We cannot build a united society without redressing the wrongs of the past. We cannot live alongside each other in harmony so long as the country’s majority, the dispossessed, do not have an equal and equitable share in land ownership," he said.
Meanwhile, the shadow of the Transnet strike did not escape speakers at the congress.
Minnaar said South Africa needed to focus on logistics, as the challenges surrounding transport infrastructure were a crippling problem for the agricultural sector.
He said research published by the World Bank showed that in 2020 it took about 92 hours on average to export goods from South Africa, compared with 12.7 hours in more efficient countries. Exports also cost about eight times more from South Africa than from other countries.
"Our harbours, with the same equipment as other countries, handle about a third of their volumes, according to the big shipping companies. Hence, the same report by the World Bank found that our harbours are the worst-performing of the evaluated harbours worldwide," Minnaar said.
“We need to address our infrastructure challenges. As part of the consumer basket, transport costs equate to 16.4% and electricity costs to 13.3% respectively. Addressing the efficiency of these two aspects can make a huge difference to the pockets of consumers,” he added.
Transnet CEO Portia Derby told the congress the utility could not crumble to the demands for higher wages because its wage bill, at 66%, was very high, and further increases could cripple the logistics group.
This as Casey Delport, an investment analyst at Anchor Capital, told Business Report yesterday that the latest strike at Transnet posed a significant risk to South Africa’s agricultural sector, which was highly export-driven.
While agricultural production tends to be seasonal, South Africa produces a diverse range of agricultural goods, with the fourth quarter in particular traditionally featuring a high level of trade activity.
For example, she said exports of food, fibre and beverages in quarter four of 2021 amounted to $2.8 billion (R49 billion), some 23% of the total value of exports in that year.
“In the export agricultural commodity business, especially that of high-value products, the reliability of South African suppliers is key in a highly globalised competitive world. Therefore, any potential prolonged delays would negatively impact the business activities of the South African suppliers to various markets in the world,” she said.
Positively, however, Delport said the strike had caught the tail end of the citrus season – one of South Africa’s key agricultural exports.
But concerns are mounting over the upcoming grape and stone-fruit seasons.
“The deciduous fruit season is expected to fully commence at the end of October 2022, with Transnet stating that it is working closely with industry to ensure that perishable products, along with other cargo with a limited shelf life, are prioritised at the ports,” she said.
BUSINESS REPORT