A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

THE

GRAIN AND OILSEED INDUSTRY

OF SOUTH AFRICA – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

ႄ

AGRICULTURAL MARKETING

TRUSTS

Dereg§lation of

and the establishment of

Virtually from the time the Union of South Africa came into

being in 1910 South African agriculture has been charac-

terised by government intervention through various pieces

of legislation. From a marketing point of view the main

intervention was probably the Marketing Act of 1937 and the

accompanying introduction of control boards for the various

agricultural products.

The main aim of the 1937 Act and its successor, the Marketing Act of 1968, was to

ensure the orderly marketing of agricultural products. Chapter 1 of this publication

describes how the acts functioned and were amended from time to time, often

because of dissatisfaction about the lack of order and consensus.

For some five decades the affairs of the grain industry in South Africa were

managed by a variety of boards in accordance with marketing schemes in a

single-channel marketing system in which the Minister of Agriculture made the

final decisions, particularly with respect to prices and marketing.

Since the eighties the pressure on the single-channel marketing system gradually

increased. This gained momentum in the 1990s, particularly as a result of prices

that were set unilaterally by the Minister. The enormous deficits that accrued in the

Stabilisation Fund also contributed to the pressure – to the extent that it could not be

neutralised even by NAMPO’s direct inputs from its members on the Maize Board.

Sound bite: Mr Jannie de Villiers’ account

of the reaction of producers to the Kassier

Committee report during a meeting in

Bethlehem.