Potato industry looks for ways to stimulate growth
THE launch of the inaugural State of the Potato Industry Address yesterday aims to act as a mouthpiece for the potato industry with the goal for the sector to scale up.
Potato SA chief executive Willie Jacobs said yesterday the launch was a game-changer as things could not go on as normal in the industry.
“Despite the rising input costs and unstable weather patterns as a result of climate change and an overall uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, approximately 570 South Africans potato farmers across the 16 regions still managed to produce fresh potatoes for 12 months.
“In 2020, farmers planted about 51 000 hectares, produced 2.6 million tons and delivered 263 million 10kg packets of potatoes.
“I am pleased to announce that our per capita consumption has doubled in the last decade, and we are argued to be one of the most efficient users of resources. The South African potato industry is self-sufficient in fresh potatoes, even exporting to the Southern African Development Community region,” Jacobs said.
Dr Thabi Nkosi, an agribusiness investment strategist, said the agricultural sector had shown positive growth throughout the past year, volumes had increased by 19 percent over the past decade, while the gross value in agriculture over the same period had also increased by 44 percent.
“However, it is not my expectation that as we come out of the past year’s uncertainty the path will clear. There are still a lot of uncertainties that we will still have to navigate. How we navigate them will inform how we fare over the next year or two,” said Nkosi.
The Pan-African Parliament’s ambassador for food, Dr Brylyne Chitsunge, said agriculture needed to be better organised and managed to grow the sector.
Chitsunge said although many people had lost jobs because of Covid19, agriculture had what it took to turn things around to scale up and create jobs. She said the government should support commercial farmers, who should in turn work with and create linkages for smallholder farmers who did not have what was required and the know how.
The challenge was that people were operating in silos. The government had the technology, but the sector and information were still not getting to the right destinations.
“I have called on the government to say it needs to establish hubs or facilitators that can explore policies and financial instruments,” she said.
Chitsunge said this would go a long way to ensure that there was food security and also food sovereignty on the continent.