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5
March 2017
Pleasure is short-lived
2
017 is referred to as a better year for agriculture, but as
a difficult economic and political year. Agriculture is bet-
ter, due to the rain that has fallen, but grain producers’
challenge has shifted from yield to price.
Very early in the year sparks flew over the question
whether profitable production could be sustained at current export
parity. It remains a dream. This is how the pendulum swung over-
night from a drought year to a wet year. One will not easily experi-
ence a normal year in this country.
All of us are grateful for the rain that has fallen and the excellent
crops on the fields, but the prices for the new season inundated us
like a thief in the night. It is not that we do not know or understand
the business, but it would have been great if our joy because of
the rain could last a little longer. Jannie du Toit sang in one of his
songs: ‘
Give and take whatever there is. Gratefully eat each skew
slice of bread, that is love
.’
Climate surely is the most unpredictable element in grain pro-
duction – even the American President is more predictable! The
elders taught us that the production conditions in the west deter-
mine the crop size. The rainfall in the east is and remains the most
reliable, but they do not produce enough food for the country.
The question is whether we can address this challenge with re-
search and technology and whether we should rather achieve it with
a combination of production relocations to the Eastern Cape and
even KwaZulu-Natal?
The first drought and heat resistant maize seed lines have already
entered the country with the assistance of the Department of
Science and Technology. Hopefully the scientists will be able to put
something on the table before the next serious drought.
There are some days when my thoughts wander back to Egypt in
the days of the ten plagues. Just when we thought the drought was
over, we are harassed by an army of worms. This type of disaster
is hard on the country’s service delivery – this way it is determined
whether you are ready to handle crises. I trust that by the time you
read this, our scientists would have already identified the pest and
that the necessary chemicals would be registered to combat it.
My sincere apologies to the maize producers who went into the new
year highly upset about a perception regarding the crop size, for
which I was responsible. After all the years of interaction with the
media, it remains risky to express your professional opinion in such
a way that it is not distorted on the way to its audience.
Grain SA, as organisation, can, however, do very little about the
crop size. It is our task to supply the market with the best informa-
tion at our disposal and leave the eventual decisions to the market
participants.