Mind the gap

JANNIE DE VILLIERS, uitvoerende hoofbestuurder/CEO

When you travel on the underground trains in London there are notices all over as well as announcements on the public address system reminding commuters to mind the gap between the train and the platform. Today I wish to draw attention to some other gaps.

The first is the gap in our research community between the old seasoned researchers and the new upcoming researchers. The old guard are between five and eight years from retirement and the younger ones have between five and eight years experience in the field. We as an industry have done quite a lot to fill the bottom gap by providing study bursaries, but there is not much of a solution to fill the gap in between.

Only the other day Dr Cobus Le Roux (general manager, ARC-Field Crops Division) boasted that the current number of staff with doctorates is the highest that has ever worked at the Institute in Bethlehem. That is encouraging!

It is, however, also true that in spite of this, we are not yet at the standard where the ARC was 20 years ago. Grain SA is currently hard at work to address this gap over the medium term. There are quite a number of exciting new plans to ensure research capacity and quality for the future.

The ARC will be part of it; however, new ideas and new partnerships are definitely necessary. This work is not always visible on the surface, but behind the scenes things are happening.

The other gap that I would like to touch on, is the gap between import and export parity when it comes to maize. This gap is making even the policymakers in the country nervous. Despite the country’s potential to produce surpluses annually, there are still government officials who are worried that we will export too much, which will raise the prices to consumers from export to import parity.

This price gap easily represents a 50% increase in maize meal- and maize-based products. This is large enough to give any politician the jitters, irrespective of the size of the majority with which the election was won. This gap is the difference between food security and a disaster. There are a number of factors affecting this gap, but I can assure you there are more than just a few poultry farmers watching it very closely.

Lastly, I would like to comment on the gap between the mandate of the Land Bank and commercial banks. It was with great disappointment that we had to hear that the Land Bank did not have the appetite for production loans to our new era commercial farmers. These members of Grain SA do not have the title deeds to the land they are farming and apparently are too much of a risk.

I have always understood that the mandate of the Land Bank was development. If the gap between them (Land Bank) and commercial banks become so narrow, I fail to understand why the state should be in banking.

In the meantime there are interesting organisations that are moving into this gap. Input suppliers like Monsanto, Omnia, John Deere and Old Mutual have almost overnight all run into this gap and are busy financing our new era commercial farmers. Isn’t the free market wonderful? Watch this gap!

Maybe I should close with the best known gap that we all know so well and which is so close to our industry: “Twixt the hand and the mouth, the porridge falls to the ground”.

It is a warning for us all to respect if we want to maintain food security in this country. If we do not mind the gaps and work to fill them, the next generation will definitely blame us.