Page 3 - Agrisa News Today

The Agricultural Industry Association has responded to Police Minister Bheki Cele’s address on the first of the two-day Rural Safety Summit in Parys in the Free State.

About 300 producers would have no alternative market for their fruit should the Ashton factory in the Western Cape close.

6 June 2022 - It’s pleasing to see Agri SA president Jaco Minnaar come out forthrightly about the damaging affect on the agricultural sector of policy and governance missteps. (“SA farmers quitting because of policy uncertainty, says Agri SA’s Jaco Minnaar”, June 5).

The risks to SA’s economic prospects have risen after the floods in KwaZulu-Natal as the province faces a massive challenge to rebuild key logistics infrastructure for imports and exports.

AgriSA agricultural economist Kulani Siweya said this week that the findings were dire and pointed to the enormous cost of South Africa’s poor road maintenance on the functioning and growth of the sector.

Farmers are looking for new markets for the millions of cartons of citrus fruits, pears and prunes that they export to Ukraine and Russia, to mitigate the possible financial losses as a result of the conflict between the two countries.

AgriSA said there will be dire consequences for South Africa should the dilapidated roads not be fixed.

IT, logistics, and finance skills are in demand but this is cold comfort for the millions of young people who remain unemployed

AgriSA said that employment in skilled agriculture has not bounced back to 2020 levels.

This follows Quarterly Labour Force Survey data that shows the unemployment rate has risen to 35.3%in the last quarter of 2021.