A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

The

grain and oilseed industry

of south africa – A journey through time

elected president of the ANC, addressed the Grain SA Congress.

One of the many positive results of Grain SA’s contribution to the community and

its relationship with the government was that it managed to obtain considerable

amounts for the funding of recapitalisation projects for developing producers from

the government.

Co-operation with government institutions has increased because Grain SA can

deliver. The Department of Science and Technology has since 2015 started sup-

porting Grain SA as research funding partner for soybean and wheat research. In

the meantime, new partnerships have been concluded with the government with

respect to research and farmer development.

With the aid of the National Treasury’s newly created fund for promoting job crea-

tion, the Jobs Fund, the Farmer Development Programme managed to launch a

project in 2015 in terms of which 1 577 small producers gained access to inputs

and mechanisation to cultivate 1 802 hectares. The opportunities enable Grain SA

to make valuable contributions to transformation at farm level too, as will be shown

in the following chapters.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

During 2011 Grain SA’s Executive accepted leadership development and training of

younger producers as well as more established leaders and mentors as a specific

strategic focus area.

In order to gain more knowledge on leadership training, Mr Jannie de Villiers,

CEO of Grain SA, attended the first phase of the annual Leadership Academy pro-

gramme of the National Corn Growers Association in the USA. This course focuses

on the development of the leadership skills of young producers. He was the first

foreigner to attend the course in 26 years.

On his return, De Villiers discussed the possibility of starting a similar programme

for young leader producers in South Africa with Mr Antonie Delport, Managing Di-

rector of Syngenta in South Africa. They believed that such a programme could

contribute a lot to the empowerment of young producers in South Africa and to the

development of a science-based approach to the future of agriculture.

The Syngenta Grain Academy was established in 2012 and a leadership develop-

ment programme was developed in collaboration with the Business School of the

University of the Free State. It comprises three study blocks of three days each

that are presented over a period of three months at the university. The Grain Acad-

emy’s first course, which was offered in 2013, was completed successfully by the

following individuals:

• Bernhard Coetzer, Potchefstroom

• Casper Botha, Potchefstroom

• Chris Bender, Clocolan

• Cobus van Zyl, Bloemhof

• Cobus Grobbelaar, Bothaville

• Corné Louw, Grain SA, Pretoria

• Floyd Murray, Eastern Cape

• Frikkie Theron, Moorreesburg

• Gideon Anderson, Middelburg

• Graham Leslie, Harrismith

• Henk Prinsloo, Middelburg

• Herman Fouche, Potchefstroom

• Jean-Pieter Corver, Harrismith

• Joel Allem, Viljoenskroon

• Johan du Toit, Senwes

• Johan van Huyssteen, Virginia

• Ters Pretorius, Heilbron