Christo says: Essential to get back to the basic principles
[{“type”:”text”,”content”:”In his State of the Nation address, president Cyril Ramaphosa recognised that the country is in a severe crisis. In many ways he had no alternative as there is no ignoring the perilous state of the country and the impact of loadshedding, rising crime and declining infrastructure on the economy and society more broadly; the agricultural sector has been particularly hard-hit. Unless the government deals with these conditions, grave short-, medium-, and long-term implications will follow.nnIn the context of crippling electricity blackouts, it was encouraging to hear the president announcing various steps to address the situation. However, the true value of the planned interventions will only become evident in the budget. Urgent and direct relief to the agricultural sector needs to be addressed in the budget if our government is to protect the countryu2019s food security.nnNot only is loadshedding crippling irrigation, but also slaughter operations, processing, packing and cold storage of food products. While attempting to mitigate the impact of loadshedding, farmers are expending significant resources on additional fuel and rising labour costs due to wasted production time and irregular working hours planned around loadshedding. This is an unbearable burden on a sector with high levels of debt, exacerbated by rising interest rates and inflationary pressure on input costs such as fertiliser and agrochemicals. The effects are becoming visible on the shelves of our local stores, but the real impact is yet to come. There is a real and imminent risk to the certainty of food supply u2013 shelves will be bare of products unless struggling farmers are afforded relief.nnBefore his address, Agri SA called on the president to declare the agricultural sector an essential service and partially exempt it from loadshedding, particularly above stage 4. This would allow for sufficient continuous hours of electricity to power irrigation systems. While the president noted that the State of Disaster would enable the government to exempt critical infrastructure from loadshedding, he said nothing of extending this exemption to the sector, even after acknowledging its vulnerability to the energy crisis. This was a wasted opportunity to give concrete relief to a vital sector.nnNor was there any clarity on the role of the yet-to-be-appointed minister of electricity. With the departments of Mineral Resources and Energy and Public Enterprises remaining involved in the crisis, this new ministry risks miring the urgency envisioned by the State of Disaster in a web of bureaucracy.”,”position”:0,”id”:”gmNIbLKtCTwR7cbT”}]