WANDILE SIHLOBO: Agriculture export growth depends on rainfall and rand
South Africa’s agricultural sector has an auspicious outlook, despite the fact that policy challenges remain
SA’s agricultural sector has an auspicious outlook, despite the fact that challenges such as policy uncertainty and climate change remain dark clouds overhead. In 2017, SA’s agricultural exports grew past the $10bn mark for the first time, boosted by growth in exports of edible fruit, beverages, spirits, vegetables, grains and other agricultural products. This is a 15% increase from 2016, a year that was characterised by El Niño-induced drought. In the same year imports also increased but by a marginal rate of 5% year on year, reaching $6.7bn. This was driven by a notable uptick in grain imports, particularly wheat and rice, on the back of reduced domestic production as a result of the Western Cape’s drought and an increase in domestic consumption. SA recorded rice imports growing by 10% year on year to 1.1-million tonnes in 2017. There were also large imports of meat, sugar, tobacco and coffee, among other products. Above all, a closer look at the trade statistics shows that SA’s a...
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