This is the question on everyone’s lips as the ANC government appears to be moving ahead with its proposal to expropriate land without compensation (EWC). During TAU SA’s recent annual Congress, Adv. Roelof du Plessis SC set out the legal ramifications of the government’s various statements about EWC.
South Africans will have to wait another two months before they know whether the Constitution should be amended to allow for land to be expropriated without compensation.
Although this was a data-packed week in the South African agricultural market, there were no surprises or data prints that somewhat changed the outlook in almost all the releases.
As set out in our previous note, the Crop Estimate Committee left its final forecast for South Africa’s 2017/18 soybean production unchanged from last month at 1.55 million tonnes. This is 18 percent higher than the previous season due to an expansion in area planted, as well as fairly higher yields.
Nothing can stand in the way of good news, especially if the good news is “food”. I am currently in Somerset West, Western Cape attending an annual conference of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa and had planned to write a brief piece about a few aspects I picked up from the research papers presented here today.
While agriculture continues to be amongst the sectors being discussed as having a potential to ignite growth and create jobs in South Africa, the government spending to the sector as a share of overall government expenditure is nowhere close to the olden days.
