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South Africa Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing
South Africa has a broad and well-developed agricultural sector and is a net food exporter in most years. Agricultural production, reflecting the sector's increased mechanization and commercialization, increased throughout the twentieth century. As mi
ning and manufacturing industries expanded at a faster rate, however, agriculture's share of GDP declined from about 20 percent in the 1930s to about 12 percent in the 1960s and to less than 7 percent in the 1990s. The impressive range of crops--including
almost every kind of food crop, as well as fibers, medicinal herbs, and components of cosmetic fragrances--reflects the country's diverse terrain, climate, and ecology. The agriculture sector provides for most domestic needs, and South Africa exports cor
n (maize), wool, sugar, peanuts (groundnuts), tobacco, and other farm products (see table 13, Appendix).
About 15 million hectares, or 12 percent of the land area, is under cultivation, and about 10 percent of this is under intensive irrigation. Agricultural production has suffered from cyclical droughts since the seventeenth century, and probably even e
arlier. Generally, the best rainfall is in the Western Cape and along the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. The rest of the country is relatively dry, and much of the arid Northern Cape is suitable only for grazing sheep (see fig. 16).
Under apartheid-era legislation until 1994, white farmers, who owned only 2 percent of the farms, controlled more than 80 percent of the arable land. White-owned farms averaged 1,300 hectares in size, whereas black farms averaged 5.2 hectares. Because
nearly 80 percent of the population was restricted to less than 20 percent of the land, most black farmland was severely overused, leading to soil erosion and low productivity. As a result, many black farm families were supported by at least one person e
ngaged in nonagricultural employment. The need for agrarian reform--broadening land ownership and increasing overall productivity--was one of the most serious issues facing the government in the mid-1990s as the inequities of apartheid were being reduced.
The government regulated both the production and the marketing phases of commercial agriculture through the early 1990s. Government-appointed marketing boards purchased important consumer crops--such as milk, corn, and most cereals--at fixed prices an
d sometimes subsidized consumer prices as well. Crops destined for further commercial processing--such as tobacco, wool, oilseeds, and dried fruit for export--also had to be sold through a marketing board, although producers generally received market valu
e for these crops after the board sold the pooled national output. The only crops freely traded were fruits and vegetables sold at local markets. The government began to reduce the role of the marketing boards in the mid-1990s, and officials hoped to elim
inate them entirely by the end of the decade.
Agriculture suffered serious effects from the chronic high inflation and debt that eroded other sectors of the economy in the early 1990s. Input costs (fertilizers, machinery, etc.) rose by 10 to 20 percent in some years; farm debt had reached R17 bil
lion in 1992, more than four times the amount owed in 1980. Farmers also had witnessed deterioration in the terms of trade in farm products; for example, the amount of corn that had to be sold to buy a farm tractor increased from about 191 tons in 1984 t
o 347 tons in 1990. Moreover, South Africa faced reduced harvests as a result of severe drought in the early 1990s, forcing the government to spend vital foreign exchange on food imports.
Crops
Cereals and grains are South Africa's most important crops, occupying more than 60 percent of hectarage under cultivation in the 1990s. Corn, the country's most important crop, is a dietary staple, a source of livestock feed, and an export crop. Gover
nment programs, including generous loans and extension services, have been crucial to the country's self-sufficiency in this enterprise. Corn is grown commercially on large farms, and on more than 12,000 small farms, primarily in North-West, Mpumalanga (f
ormerly, Eastern Transvaal), Free State (formerly, the Orange Free State), and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. Corn production generates at least 150,000 jobs in years with good rainfall and uses almost one-half of the inputs of the modern agricultural sector.
Corn production exceeds 10 million tons in good years; owing to regional drought in the early 1990s, however, production fell to just over 3 million tons in 1992, and roughly 5 million tons of corn were imported, at a cost of at least US$700 million.
Both domestic and imported corn was shipped to neighboring countries to help ease the regional impacts of the drought. The drought eased in 1993, and officials estimated the 1994 harvest at approximately 12 million tons. Below-average rainfall in late 199
4 again threatened to reduce corn output in 1995, and officials expected to import some 600,000 tons of corn in that year. Plentiful rain in late 1995 provided for a bumper crop in 1996.
Wheat production, which is concentrated in large, highly mechanized farms, also increased after World War II. Wheat cultivation spread from the western Cape where rainfall is fairly reliable, to the Orange Free State and the eastern Transvaal, primari
ly in response to rising consumer demand. But wheat harvest volumes vary widely; for example, roughly 2.1 million tons were produced in 1991 and only 1.3 million tons in 1992. Production in the early 1990s failed to meet local demand for about 2.2 million
tons per year. Wheat imports in 1992, for example, cost more than US$5 million.
Other small grains are grown in localized areas of South Africa. For example, sorghum--which is native to southern Africa--is grown in parts of the Free State, as well as in the North-West and the Northern provinces, with yields often exceeding 200,00
0 tons. Sorghum has been used since prehistoric times for food and brewing purposes. Barley is also grown, primarily in the Western Cape. Nearly 300,000 tons of barley were produced in 1995.
South Africa produces peanuts, sunflower seeds, beans, and soybeans. Annual production of these crops varies significantly from year to year, although South Africa is usually able to meet domestic vegetable-oil needs and generate some exports. Plentif
ul rains in late 1995 meant increased harvests of these crops in 1996, compared to 1994 and 1995.
Fruits, including grapes for wine, earn as much as 40 percent of agricultural export earnings in some years. (Fresh fruit finds a good market in Europe because it matures during the northern hemisphere's winter.) Deciduous fruits, including apples, pe
ars, and peaches, are grown primarily in areas of the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, where cold winters and dry summers provide ideal conditions for these crops. Almost 1 million tons of deciduous fruits were sold fresh locally or were exported each y
ear in the early 1990s.
Pineapples are grown, primarily in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Tropical fruits--especially bananas, avocados, and mangoes--are also grown, especially in the northeast and some coastal areas. More than half of citrus production is exported in m
ost years. South Africa exported 40 million cartons of citrus fruit in 1994, earning roughly R1.34 billion, according to industry sources.
More than 1.5 million tons of grapes are used domestically in South Africa's renowned wine industry, which dates back to the seventeenth-century vineyards introduced by French Huguenot immigrants. More than 100,000 hectares of land are planted in vine
yards, centered primarily in the Western Cape. Smaller vineyards are also found in the Northern Cape, Free State, and Northern Province. One of the noticeable signs of the end of international sanctions against South Africa was a dramatic increase in worl
dwide demand for South African wines in 1994 and 1995.
Sugarcane is also an important export crop, and South Africa is the world's tenth largest sugar producer. Sugarcane was first cultivated in mid-nineteenth-century Natal. Production is still centered there, but sugar is also grown in Mpumalanga, where
irrigation is used when rainfall is inadequate. Land under sugar cultivation has steadily increased, and the industry estimated that it produced more than 16 million tons of sugarcane in 1994.
Data as of May 1996
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