SA’s agriculture must constantly monitor global developments and risks that could undermine its competitiveness in the world market as an export-orientated sector.
Several environmental, social and political risks remain at the top of farmers’ and agribusiness leaders’ minds.
However, one issue that is not always fully appreciated is the contribution of agricultural input providers — various agrochemicals and seed breeding.
The lack of public focus mainly stems from consumers and policymakers monitoring the end products — harvest size and, in animals, the health and expansion of herds.
Since 1994, SA’s agricultural value has more than doubled.
Some significant catalysts are at the centre of this progress — the expansion of export markets, which creates a demand for products; the early adoption of high-yielding seed varieties in crops; the improvement of animal genetics; and the use of agrochemicals to nurture the sector.
SA has embraced technological advancement in ways that many countries on the African continent have not, thus setting the country apart from much of Africa in terms of its yields.
This technological embrace primarily explains higher crop yields in SA compared to some of the neighbouring African countries which have better climatic conditions.
A case in point is SA’s embrace of genetically modified crops, whose adoption in the early 2000s saw maize and soybean yields improve notably over time, thus keeping the country as a net exporter and boosting food availability domestically.
With this encouraging track record in embracing science, a semi-arid country like SA should invest more resources in science, where climate change and changing geopolitical environments have introduced new risks.
Each country should strive to improve its food security.
Fortunately SA has a thriving privately led agricultural sector.
Resources have been channelled into research and could continue to be devoted to this effort.
In fact, while the government’s spending on research and development has continued to fall, the private sector has significantly increased its research and development.
Still, the country’s regulators, specifically the department of agriculture, need to share the urgency of the present moment and productively support technological advancement.
Such support would come from constructively evaluating the various agrochemicals and seeds the private sector offers and registering them for use after satisfying the testing.
The process, though, needs to be faster and more agile, and not boxed down into the usually organised agriculture and government politics.
What should be a priority is the health, improvement, sustainability and competitiveness of South African agriculture.
This is a perspective through which the regulators should engage the input providers and private sector researchers.
Equally, the organised agriculture groups should ensure that their scientists are leading the engagements with the regulators and not muddy science with various issues they often raise with the government, which could be discussed elsewhere.
A case in point of legislative work that needs to be revamped and modernised is Act 36 of 1947, the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Seeds and Remedies Act.
This Act regulates the registration of fertilisers, farm feeds, sterilising plants, and specific remedies.
Even countries that have always maintained a sluggish view of scientific progress in agriculture, such as the European Union, are suddenly changing their approaches.
For example, on February 7 2024, the European parliament issued a statement highlighting that it had adopted a “position for negotiations with member states on the commission proposal on new genomic techniques (NGTs), which alter the genetic material of an organism, with 307 votes to 263 and 41 abstentions”.
The parliament further stated that “the objective is to make the food system more sustainable and resilient by developing improved plant varieties that are climate resilient, pest resistant and give higher yields or that require fewer fertilisers and pesticides”.
Currently, in the EU all plants obtained by NGTs are subject to the same rules as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Members of the European parliament agree with the proposal to have two different categories and two sets of rules for NGT plants.
NGT plants considered equivalent to conventional ones (NGT 1 plants) would be exempt from the requirements of the GMO legislation, whereas other NGT plants (NGT 2 plants) would still have to follow stricter requirements.
The members want to keep mandatory labelling of products from both NGT 1 and NGT 2 plants.
In essence, SA should also review its regulations on gene-editing matters to be at the forefront as the country has been within acceptable health regulations in the past two decades.
The goal should be to support a growing and competitive agricultural sector.
- Wandile Sihlobo is an agricultural economist.
This post was originally published on here
