The South African Agricultural Trust’s assets have grown by R83.6 million during the 2022/23 financial year amid recovery in investment markets, according to a report by the National Agricultural Marketing Council (Namc) on Tuesday.
The assets are now at R2.57 billion.
“This increase surpasses the R47m increase we experienced in the previous financial year by a significant margin. Notably, the Oil and Protein Seeds Development Trust experienced a decrease of about R21m, while the Potato Industry Development Trust saw a decrease of around R5.5m.
“The Maize Trust holds the largest asset base at R1.1bn, followed by the Wool Trust at R582m while the National Lucerne Trust has the smallest at R1.7m,” the report noted.
The report was compiled by Vusimusi Sithole, Nomantande Yeki, Buhlebemvelo Dube, Phelelani Sibiya, Ricardo Smith, Matsobane Mpyana and Bonani Nyhodo.
The mandate of agricultural industry trusts is to safeguard the trust assets and fund the proceeds of the industry.
The trusts allocated R82m in transformation expenditure up from R55.9m a year ago. Enterprise development received the highest funding, followed by skills development, management control and then socio-economic activities.
While the Maize Trust had been successful in its transformation programme, challenges with the Grain Farmer Development Association (GFADA) had left a gap in the coordination of transformation projects, particularly between the different grain and oilseed industries.
Efforts were being made to improve the coordination of transformation programmes. A special Transformation Review Panel has been established to recommend future transformation efforts, targets, and goals, the report said.
The Sorghum Trust’s transformation programme has been successful, but the demise of the GFADA had “unfortunately created a gap in the coordination of transformation projects, particularly between the various grain and oilseed industries”, the report said, adding that the National Lucerne Trust faced a shortage of funding.
The trusts’ governance, including its administrative structure and the board of trustees currently had 82 trustees, with 56 representing the industry and 26 representing the minister of agriculture.
Namc noted that there was the rise in appointments of female ministerial trustees over the years, with approximately 14 out of 26 ministerial trustees being women.
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