AgribusinessSouth Africa's land reform department will put R500 million in grants into Land Bank's blended finance scheme for the rest of 2026/27, reopening loans for emerging farmers after a pause.
LivestockThando Soroshi of Lady Grey in South Africa's Eastern Cape now keeps about 2,000 broilers, a pig herd producing some 300 piglets a year, sheep, goats and cattle, and runs a shisanyama.
CropsSA Canegrowers wants the health promotion levy dropped in the 21 October medium-term budget, saying it has cost jobs and mills while cane deliveries this season are down 18%.
LivestockWith El Niño expected to bring below-normal rainfall and heat to South Africa's 2026/27 summer, livestock advisers urge farmers to match breeding to grazing, check bull fertility and body condition, and vaccinate well before mating.
LivestockAt a Road to Recovery meeting at Nampo Alfa, South African red meat leaders backed stronger disease control and export access after the foot-and-mouth crisis but could not agree on vaccination rules, incentives or how to pay for the industry's 2030 strategy.
CropsThe North West provincial government has set up a packhouse at Jantjies Boerdery to help lucerne farmers in Taung process and pack their crop and move further up the value chain.
LivestockAn Agricultural Research Council programme in Jozini, KwaZulu-Natal, is bringing animal identification, performance records and genetic data into the breeding decisions of communal goat farmers, with the aim of lifting production and opening access to formal markets.
LivestockMartin de Klerk of Perdefontein Dohne Merinos near Clanwilliam uses strict culling, veld testing without supplementary feed and breeding values to build a fertile, hardy dual-purpose flock.
AgribusinessBFAP's latest brief with Absa Agribusiness shows food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation at 1.1% in August, yet a basic healthy food basket for a family of four cost R3,935, about 55% of a one-minimum-wage household's income.
LivestockThe Technology Innovation Agency is backing TokaBio's Molecular Rapid Response and Bio-surveillance Programme, which runs mobile and fixed laboratories to detect livestock diseases that cost South Africa export markets.
AgribusinessSpeakers from the Land Bank, the wine industry, Joburg Market and a Johannesburg food store told a Future of Food Conference panel that specifications, packaging, pricing and relationships matter as much as the product.
LivestockAt a Mohair Empowerment Trust training in the Eastern Cape, the National Wool Growers' Association urged farmers to identify the predator first, keep records and protect young animals, without wiping out wildlife.
Homestead farmingThe share of South African households farming fell from 19.9% in 2011 to 13.8% in 2022, eroding a low-cost food security buffer, while women now head most of the households that still farm.
