A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

The

grain and oilseed industry

of south africa – A journey through time

2014 after Ms Ntombi Msimang, who had also been the Chairperson of the National

Agricultural Marketing Council, suddenly passed away.

However, according to Grain SA’s annual report of 2016, the agricultural sector has

not yet succeeded in creating a unified voice for agriculture. Because Grain SA is

in favour of one mouthpiece for organised agriculture, secretariat support was of-

fered to ASUF as organisation for agricultural unity during 2015/2016.

BOTHAVILLE OFFICE: MOVE TO PRETORIA

When SAMPI was founded, the head office was established in Bothaville in facili-

ties provided by Mr Crawford von Abo. After SAMPI and SAMSO merged, NAMPO

continued to use the head office in Bothaville. Later, NAMPO acquired its own

building in Bothaville, which served as the head office until the establishment of

Grain SA.

This building was used as head office by Grain SA too for about twelve years. Dur-

ing that period investigations were launched on occasion regarding the possible

move of the head office, but the findings were always that Bothaville was the most

suitable site for Grain SA’s head office.

During 2011 Jannie de Villiers was appointed as the new CEO of Grain SA. The re-

establishment of Grain SA’s head office in Pretoria in 2012 consequently formed

part of a new strategic focus that was approved by the organisation’s Executive.

Grain SA’s leadership accepted the reality that it would be in the best interest of the

organisation and its members if the head office was established in Pretoria.

One of the main considerations for the move to Pretoria was liaison with the gov-

ernment and government organisations in the pursuit and execution of Grain SA’s

objectives. The distance between Bothaville and Pretoria (roughly 600 km there and

back, with about 6 hours’ travelling time), where most of the interaction with the

government and role-players in the grain industry took place, made effective lobby-

ing difficult.

The changed circumstances within which Grain SA functioned, together with ob-

jectives for transformation, constantly required new expertise to be established

in the personnel corps. It was very difficult to achieve those objectives with the

head office in Bothaville because it was not easily possible to attract BEE experts

to Bothaville.

The moving of the head office was a challenging process. Not all Grain SA members

agreed with the move. However, there was sufficient motivation for the decision and

it was done successfully. Looking back it seems that the decision to move Grain SA’s

head office to Pretoria was the right one. Grain SA achieves positive results with

influencing policy. Liaison with interest groups is more effective because it is easier

to reach them.

In addition, it is easier to recruit and appoint expert and multilingual staff in an

urban environment. The change in the composition of the personnel corps, execu-

tive members and office bearers has necessitated English being adopted as the

official language of some Grain SA meetings. Grain SA has also progressed well

with the transformation of its personnel corps.

The organisation started realising transformation in its leadership with the appoint-

ment of Mr Victor Mongoato – Chairperson of Grain SA’s Farmer Development

Programme Working Group – as Vice-chairpersons of Grain SA in March 2013.

Since then Mongoato and Mr Andries Theron have served as Vice-chairpersons of

the organisation. Although Ms Preline Swart took over as Vice-chairperson from

Mongoato during Grain SA’s 2016 Congress, he is still a co-opted member of the

organisation’s Executive Committee.

Progress with transformation in Grain SA has made a definite contribution to the

creation of a relationship of trust with government institutions. Grain SA maintains

a good relationship with the government and received both Messrs Thabo Mbeki

and Jacob Zuma, the second and third state presidents of South Africa since 1994,

at NAMPO Park. Grain SA had considerable interaction with Mbeki in particular

when the agricultural plan was drafted. In March 2008 Zuma, at the time only the