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Media reports say that South African agriculture is in recession. The value of the industry has decreased by 12.2%, it is stated. After two quarters of negative growth (an oxymoron used by economists!), the reasons for this recession are many and varied: the crosswinds in the very important meat and poultry industries were more intense than had been expected, but the excellent harvests from the maize farmers  – the second best ever – of 16.4m tons and the record soya bean crop of 2.8m tons were not enough to save the industry from this considerable downturn. (Agbiz, Rapport 6.3.24).

 These are the figures. Let us turn to the story behind these results. The erratic provision of electricity by the national power supplier Eskom has had a seriously detrimental effect on SA’s agricultural production. Some farmers have thrown in the towel. They cannot irrigate to plan – load shedding (blackouts) at all times of the day or night played havoc with their computerised irrigation pump programs. The cost of diesel oil is suffocating. There are critical problems at SA’s harbours where farm produce sits in the sun for days while the government-appointed incompetents supposed to keep the harbours functioning are clearly not up to the job and, more importantly, many couldn’t care less!  So our precious top quality fruit spoils on the docks, while the overseas customers look for other suppliers. 

Transporting agricultural export produce to the coast carries its own horrors. Our railways have been destroyed by the African National Congress (ANC) government’s total neglect of what used to be Africa’s finest railroad network. While huge sections of track have been pilfered, whole railway station buildings have disappeared, carried away brick by brick. Using road transport as a poor and more expensive alternative has proved dangerous and unpredictable. Hijacks are a regular occurrence, as is the pillaging and burning of haulage trucks on key highways. Local rural roads are in most cases now simply dirt tracks which have to be regularly repaired by farmers at their own expense, while the local municipality, if under ANC governance, is almost or totally bankrupt and cannot even deliver water. Severe drought conditions, animal diseases with poor vaccination supplies and lapses in bio security have added insult to injury. Crime on and around farms has resulted in personal casualties (including deaths), and serious financial losses.

FARMERS IN EUROPE

European farmers recently blockaded their highways in protest at their governments’ policies regarding subsidies and pricing, inter alia. Heaven help them if they had to live with the problems SA farmers endure on a daily basis. These agriculturalists of Europe have no inkling of what has happened to SA agriculture since the ANC took power. It is a miracle that 32,000 farmers remain in the country, providing food every day for 60 million people. South African farmers are the backbone of the country, and they remain here because this is their country and farming is not a job, it’s a vocation. It is in most cases a family enterprise stretching over generations. If the ANC is too obtuse, too ignorant and too primitive to appreciate these farmers, there are many in South Africa who certainly value them.  And the world knows they are the best agriculturalists on the planet. Ask Bloomberg, the IMF, the World Bank, Moody’s and all the other people who matter.   

THE MIND SET CONUNDRUM 

How did sensible people who built a first world country at the bottom of a maligned continent end up with a regime like the ANC? Many ask this question when they look at what South Africa has become under such an incompetent and venal ruling cabal. 

Did those who vehemently helped the ANC to power ever consider checking out who the ANC was? Where did they come from? What was their track record in running anything, let alone a country? When assessing someone’s capability for a job, a background check is made. Not in this case however. The frenzy to get rid of the apartheid “yoke” was so all-encompassing that prudence was cast to the wind in the haste to bring to power what is now one of the worst governments in the world. 

The kernel of why we are where we are today is that the mindset of those in power in SA is third world, while what works is first world. In his book “Path to Power” Andre de Ruyter, former head of Eskom, told of an entity which was the best of its kind in the world, and simply collapsed because of the lack of attention to detail. As he traversed the power stations and the offices of Eskom, he saw the neglect and the decay that is the world hallmark of third world conditions. He saw those in charge sitting their office desks in expensive suits and imported shoes instead of being out in the field and in the workshops in jump suits and work boots. He declared: “That said it all!”.  Dirt and untidiness was evident. Files all over the place, empty coke bottles on the desks and phones unanswered. We all know these third world symbols. A mindset that can permit these conditions never succeeds. Running a country is all about detail. It’s about noticing a problem in advance. It’s about planning in advance. It’s about the absolute need for scientific knowledge, integrity, a sense of responsibility. None of these qualities exist in the mindsets of our ruling classes.

Look at the ANC cadres’ backgrounds. There is nothing evident to give any indication that they care about being successful in running an entity like South Africa. They have no shame, otherwise they would have all resigned years ago. In their back ground there was no creative activity. They remained in a primitive state for centuries. Only the arrival of European and other settlers changed that, and they simply piggy backed on another’s culture. Even under these circumstances, there was no inherent creative stimulation. They simply used up what was available to them. They are consumers, not creators.

In historical writings about the South Africa of  the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when European writers, missionaries and European government representatives put pen to paper, they wrote what they saw: primitive stone age living among the black tribes, without a wheel, without a written word. Killing, kidnapping, stealing cattle and pillaging the possessions of other tribes was their modus vivendi. So why would they have been considered as able enough to run South Africa?  Warnings against the possibility of an ANC government were unheeded even though these warnings proved to have been prescient.

VACCINES AND ANIMAL DISEASES

Apart from all the myriad facets of South African life that have been devastated by ANC  incompetence and a complete lack of the DNA needed to rectify and progress, the problems around the availability of vaccinations against animal diseases is a case in point.  In 2022 already,  the red flag was flying regarding the lack of available vaccinations at the Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) which is housed  at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute,  once a world renowned institution famous for, inter alia, the creation of animal vaccines.

In 2014, R500 million was given to OBP to build a new vaccine plant compliant with national and internal regulatory requirements:  Parliament realised the precarious situation SA would be in should we lose our capacity to produce vaccines for livestock. Many of the vaccines produced at OBP are not available anywhere else in the world.. Of the R500 million, R100 million was used to upgrade offices, install a private toilet for the CEO and build a new canteen, What had been a delayed delivery of vaccines now ground to a halt. “OBP is effectively defunct as a vaccine company”. (Maverick 12.1.22) What happened to the remaining R400 million has not been disclosed.

Fast forward to January 18,2024 where the situation around animal diseases is being called  “a perfect storm”. As usual, it didn’t take long for the ANC rot to set in. It is a given that everything they touch turns to dust. Proof of this is evident right throughout the body and soul of South Africa. The DNA has moved from first to third world.  This is why the continent of Africa is what it is. Many said it would be different here, but DNA trumps everything. R.W. Johnson said in his book “South Africa’s Brave New World” that the ANC “stuck to the African script” after their takeover. It wasn’t different here at all.

The call for private companies to take over the production of vital vaccines has become inevitable. It is ringing throughout the country as state-owned entities collapse. One that needs urgent attention is OBP.  “ Commercial agriculture poses many challenges” says John Hudson, head of Agriculture at Nedbank Commercial Banking. “One of these is an increased risk of disease outbreaks due to livestock farming.  Almost simultaneous disease outbreaks are now occurring in South Africa and this is driven by various factors. These include a lack of knowledge about how diseases are transmitted and how to recognise the symptoms of diseases;  the irresponsible and illegal movement of animals in violation of regulations; and a lack of state oversight, vaccinations and proper awareness”.

It’s the same old story. Give your precious scientifically developed processes to the ANC and the decay appears. The reason – a cultural gap between the first and third worlds living in political juxtaposition in South Africa. First world scientists developed one of the finest institutions in the world at Onderstepoort. Third world ANC cadres who never developed anything within their culture over thousands of years, have broken down the structures because they know nothing about them, and don’t know what they don’t know. The arrogance is stultifying ,but dangerous. To those who threw us all together under a third world regime, surely you knew this catastrophe would happen?

As to the commercial farming community, they are as resilient as ever. Drought and other farming problems have always been with us, but the very breadth and depth of the ANC government’s destructive course is something many did not expect. We must ensure that the ANC is stripped of power. There are changes within the private sector regarding electric power independence, while  other facets of South African life have moved to take control without a government role. We can do it on our own. We did it on our own for 350 years. So why not now? We cannot succumb to third world stupidity and venality.  We will eschew the path of the ANC because it is a path to destruction.