How can South Africa do better with its agricultural exports?

If South Africa is to reach her goal of 5% economic growth and more, it is vital that she has an agricultural sector which is in good shape, and that she proceeds from there. Agriculture is primary. On its own it might not draw many wolf-whistles for contribution to the country's GDP, but the case becomes pretty convincing when you take a look at how much depends on agriculture. The obvious lead-on's are food manufacturing, food retailing and the labour absorption in rural areas. And the context is much wider when you consider all the input industries (fertiliser, irrigation, animal feeds etc), financial industries and so on.

South Africa's Agricultural Trade Competitiveness Desktop Diagnostics continues: "The South Africa’s agricultural sector has found lucrative markets for their products in many parts of the world. Its contribution to South Africa’s total exports is approximately 13 percent. However, the globalisation coupled with trade liberalisation of the last decades did not spur export-led growth or significant diversification of the country’s agricultural export basket. Consequently, technological advances and market access are not sufficient to unlock the gains from trade that highlights the importance of indigenous supply-side constraints in trade development".

Find this study, done by the North-West University for the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), here.