FruitsAbsa's AgriTrends spring report says citrus exports have grown to about US$2.5bn but need more markets, while port delays in Cape Town cost the table grape chain more than R3bn.
LivestockAbsa's AgriTrends Spring 2026 sees the maize market well supplied for the rest of the season; Epol's feed director says feed is about 70 percent of livestock input costs, while a poultry producer warns drought reserves and diesel could keep feed prices where they are.
Abri Lock's Red Rock Santas, run with his father's Locklore and his cousin's JADUP herds near Schweizer-Reneke, put fertility ahead of size: a foundation cow has produced nine calves at a 361-day intercalving period, and the combined 600-cow herd weans about 85 per cent under continuous mating.
A UKZN-Rhodes University study on a commercial farm near Pietermaritzburg measured a hemp crop using 377 mm of water over a four-month season, about 28 litres a day per plant area, with weeds between the rows taking a large share.
Luckhoff irrigation farmer Fanie Botha told Farmer's Weekly after its El Niño preparedness panel that the resilience steps advisers urge cost money smaller farmers do not have: a combine that cost R2 million twelve years ago now costs over R5 million, urea jumped from R8,000 to R16,000 a tonne at pl
Four years after the first plantings in 2022, growers in Grabouw and Ceres have harvested the country's first Cosmic Crisp apples, a Washington State University cross of Enterprise and Honeycrisp that resists browning after cutting, now sold exclusively at selected Checkers stores.
At the 2026 SA Olive Awards in Paarl, industry chairman Richard Allen warned that recovering global supply and lower prices are pressing small producers to become more efficient, judges from Brazil and Turkey noted rising quality, Het Vlock Casteel's Denise Bergman was named an Agri Worker of the Ye
At the Rooibos Tea Producers Association AGM near Clanwilliam on 17 September, chairperson Werner Nieuwoudt said rain stopped in mid-June and seedlings sat in nurseries through the June-August planting window; September rain has let planting resume and can lift older plants' yields 20-30%, while gro
At a FairPlay webinar, the Citrus Growers' Association said eligibility remains under review and a 12.5% tariff still applies, though US buyers, 5% of exports, over 120,000 tonnes last season, must be kept; the poultry association says the 2015 deal let 65,000 tonnes of US chicken in duty-free whi
Dr Jack Bloom told a Food for Mzansi session at Nampo Cape that pilot projects show treated sludge and wastewater with undetectable E. coli, safe for farm use; with most fertiliser imported and small towns short of water, he wants public-private sludge plants, decentralised treatment near farms and
At Nampo Cape in Bredasdorp, grain farmers told minister Willie Aucamp that subsidised competitors, slow tariff triggers and some two million tonnes of imports are pushing wheat out of the province; BFAP found local wheat's baking value 39% higher than imports yet its SAFEX price about R700/t lower,
An Agbiz outlook carried by FarmingPortal: local fertiliser prices were 20% above a year earlier at the end of August with Brent above US$100, tractor sales have fallen four months running to 606 units in August (down 13%), foot-and-mouth restrictions leave few export outlets if drought forces cattl
Deputy water minister Jack Bloom told a Nampo Cape seminar that Gauteng wastes as much water each year as the Western Cape uses, only 23 of 144 water service authorities earned clean audits, 47% of wastewater plants are critical and 96 criminal cases have been opened against local authorities, loss
