Western Cape is SA's agricultural powerhouse

According to Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) data released on Wednesday, 17 October, the province accounted for the largest income earned by large scale farming, for the financial year ending 28 February 2006, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with R8.9 billion.

The Survey for Large Scale Agriculture defined large scale farming units as enterprises with gross annual farming income of R3 million and above.

About 52% of the total gross farming income from large scale agriculture was generated from commercial farming of animals and the animal product division.

Horticultural and field crop products were the second and third largest sources of income in the agricultural sector, with contributions of 27% respectively to the country's total income.

KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and the Free State generated R5.2 billion, R4.4 billion and R2.4 billion respectively from horticultural product sales.

In terms of employment statistics for large scale farming units throughout the country, the figure stood at 495,518 paid employees at the end of the financial year.

The largest number of paid employees in the agricultural sector worked in the Western Cape with 25.6% of the work force or 126,992 paid employees, followed by Mpumalanga with 64,227 paid employees.

In total, large scale commercial farmers paid farm workers a combined amount of R6.6 billion in wages, amounting to 13.3% of the gross farming income generated in the large scale agricultural sector and is also 16.2% of its total current expenditure.

Debt in large scale agriculture countrywide came in at 39% of gross farming income or R19.6 billion, and was highest in the Western Cape with 55% the total debt amount.

The debt varied considerably across the country; however, the Western Cape was negatively affected due to a decrease in horticultural crops, and extensive mechanisation within the sector causing large scale farmers to incur heavy debt in the purchase of new machinery and equipment.

Agriculture has taken a backseat to other booming sectors such as manufacturing and services in the build-up to the continents most coveted event, the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

In conjunction with this, climate change has also negatively affected agriculture nationally and internationally, and agriculture in South Africa has been feeling the heat over the last decade.

In July this year, the agricultural sectors contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased from 4% to 2.9%, said Manager of Agricultural Statistics at Stats SA, Moses Mnyaka, to BuaNews.

Article published courtesy of BuaNews