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Maart 2018
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Levy to help improve breeding
of self-pollinated crops
‘T
he agricultural industry cannot be self-sufficient when
70% of wheat and 80% of soybeans are planted with
farm-saved seed. This will lead to less investment in new
cultivars and breeding programmes, which will, in turn,
influence the yield.’
This is according to Mr Andries Theron, producer and co-opted
Executive member of Grain SA, who addressed the media and
industry role-players at the SA Cultivar and Technology Agency
(SACTA) launch in November last year.
‘The average yield for wheat in my production area in the
Western Cape is 3,2 t/ha and for barley it is 4,5 t/ha to 5 t/ha. The
reason for this low yield is because of a lack of new technology
for self-pollinated crops (wheat, barley, soybeans and some can-
ola cultivars).’ According to Theron producers were feeling the ef-
fect of the vicious circle caused by farm-saved seed and were the
first to propose a solution to this problem. ‘It was proposed that a
sustainable seed funding programme needs to be implemented.
Subsequently the breeding and technology levy was established and
SACTA was created to administer it,’ he said.
The role of the wheat breeder
Dr Francois Koekemoer (research director, Sensako) addressed,
amongst other matters, a wheat breeder's requirements to release
successful wheat varieties into the market.
‘The breeder needs to breed for an ideotype or acceptable pheno-
type. The ideal ideo-/phenotype requires a variety that has accept-
able and stable yield levels, proper insect, disease, abiotic and biotic
stress resistance/tolerance levels and acceptable grading and pro-
cessing quality,’ he said.
Dr Koekemoer said that a wheat breeder has to accommodate up to
40 to 50 more characteristics simultaneously or at different levels
of selection.
End-point royalty (EPR) system
‘Despite progress with regards to wheat quality and yield simultane-
ously, hectares are the lowest in the history of wheat production in
South Africa,’ Dr Koekemoer said.
He said that the EPR system that was implemented in 2017 and man-
aged by SACTA, will increase the income of farm-saved seed. ‘This
will enable breeding programmes to afford better equipment, tools
and infrastructure and participate with international expertise. This
is a system where a holder of plant breeders’ rights exercises its
right to a fee on the grain produced rather than on the seed used
or sold.’
Mr Gert Heyns (marketing manager: Seed and Biotechnology,
Monsanto) highlighted three of the benefits of this self-regulatory
system:
All grain of a specific crop is levied at first point of sale.
All growers pay the same levy.
Producers and breeders share the risk (if producer income is low
due to drought etc., the levies are also lower and the income is
directly linked to the level of variety performance).
Heyns wants to call on producers to in future adopt an attitude of
declaration and openness by declaring the variety that was grown
and delivered and declaring the technology (bio-tech and other).
The role of SACTA
According to Heyns, SACTA is supported by grain producers and
collects the levy from them. ‘In the past breeding was funded per
project and not necessarily on performance.’
Heyns said that SACTA believes that ‘cultivars should offer a healthy
balance between yield and quality, cultivars should be driven by the
free market, dictated by demand and that the industry should not
lose its competitive advantage in terms of quality’.
Transformation
He said that as this is a statutory levy, 20% of all distributable funds
will be allocated to transformation. ‘Breeding companies will have
the responsibility to apply such funds according to the National Mar-
keting Council’s guidelines for transformation. The relevant trusts
will also have levies and the joint pool of funds will increase signifi-
cantly, benefiting transformation.’
Heyns used wheat as an example. ‘Producers are now paying
R35/ton (Winter Cereal Trust: R10 and SACTA: R25), where in the
past they paid R17/ton. The total levy has more than doubled.
There will therefore be considerable additional funds available for
transformation.’
FOCUS
Seed
Special
RUTH SCHULTZ,
SA Graan/Grain
editorial team
1: Leon du Plessis, left, from L&L
Agricultural Services, who manages
the administration of SACTA, with
the SACTA board: Dr Marinda Visser
(manager: Grain Research and
Policy Centre, Grain SA),
Gert Heyns, Dr Lukeshni Chetty
(general manager, SANSOR),
Andries Theron and Mariana Purnell
(general manager: Agbiz Grain).
2: The inspectors of SACTA are
Awie Coetzee and Sakkie Kloppers.
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