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CHAPTER 1
arrangements were made. However, the deregulation of the grain industry changed
the playing field completely. Suddenly there were many more role-players in the
grain industry who each focused on his own needs without taking the total posi-
tion with respect to the supply and demand of transport into consideration and
without any co-ordination. Likewise, the import and export of grain was no longer
co-ordinated, and the entry of material foreign role-players like Cargill and Louis
Dreyfus led to even greater complexity.
These factors, together with other logistical challenges with respect to storage
capacity and the handling of many more unique consignments, promoted a ma-
jor diversified, unpredictable and unstable need for transport. This, together
with needs like shorter turnaround time, quick reaction and adaptability that are
unique to the free market, created the opportunity for alternative transport. The
transport of grain by road increased rapidly, to the extent that in 2015 about 85%
of all grain in South Africa was estimated to be transported in this way, compared
to 15% in 1990.
Agricultural research and technology
On 1 April 1992 the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) was established as a rela-
tively autonomous institution as a result of the restructuring of the Department
of Agricultural Development, which involved the deregulation and privatisation of
certain divisions of the department.
Initially, the ARC comprised twelve research institutes that were transferred from
the Department of Agricultural Development to the ARC. Up to that stage the De-
partment of Agricultural Development was responsible for the major portion of
agricultural research in South Africa. The department was assisted with this by
the agricultural faculties of universities, the marketing councils that made impor-
tant inputs, agricultural co-operatives, private undertakings and the Department of
Development Aid from the government. The Department of Agricultural Develop-
ment had the biggest manpower component for agricultural research, with about
5 600 staff members, which included 950 researchers, 58 agricultural economists
and 46 agricultural engineers.
The Department of Agricultural Development also had well-equipped laboratories
with a total floor area of about 14 000 square metres, in addition to 74 experimental
farms, spread across most of the climatic regions and cultivation areas in South Af-
rica. The experimental farms carried out field trials under controlled conditions and
Ready to sail.
Maize imports.