In European countries, pineapple sales are going well. Many countries are still missing the demand from the hospitality industry, but the limited supply is keeping the market in balance. There is also a positive mood in the pineapple market in South Africa and the United States. Costa Rica produces pineapples all year round and has seen an increase in the demand ahead of Easter. In Australia, the market situation is less rosy. Due to a labor shortage, some pineapples cannot be harvested and remain in the fields. Taiwan is also having a difficult time. China has imposed an import ban on Taiwanese pineapples, so the country is looking for alternative buyers.  

Netherlands: Steady pineapple market due to limited supply
Pineapple sales are currently running smoothly. "From week 1 onwards, there is actually not a lot of fruit available. Delays are more the norm than the exception, and the pace of the arrival of shipments is far from normal," says a Dutch importer. "As a result, prices are at a reasonable level. But if more fruit had come onto the market, the pricing would have been more problematic. Now prices stand at around 9 Euro. Supermarkets are buying large volumes, although this does not compensate for the missing sales to the hotel and catering industry. Furthermore, the conditions in the free trade market are very volatile. When government leaders in Germany or France announce new rules, this has a direct impact on sales to, for example, schools and caterers. Furthermore, sometime in May, the natural flowering will come again, which means that there will be more pineapples on the market."

Belgium: Pineapple market in balance
Belgian pineapple sales are going reasonably well at the moment. The market is in balance, which means that prices are at an excellent level. This is largely due to the supply, which is rather limited. The fact that restaurants are closed also has some impact on the market, but supermarkets can absorb part of this. Most of the supply currently comes from Costa Rica. 

Germany: Difficult market conditions due to shortage of air freight
As in the case of other tropical fruits from overseas, the pineapple market is strongly affected by the lack of air traffic. Importers report that the air freight capacity remains very low, and that this persistent shortage of air freight is taking its toll on the supply and prices. The bulk of the supply currently comes from Costa Rica. Pineapples from West Africa are only arriving in limited volumes, which means that the prices for the average sizes are somewhat higher.

Pineapples are increasingly perceived as a convenience item. Machines for ad hoc peeling and processing of pineapples into fruit salads are currently in great demand in the German retail. The higher retail segment in particular is betting big on this relatively new formula of German manufacture (Hepro GmbH).

Italy: Good demand for pineapples despite closure of catering industry
In Italy, the demand for pineapples is good despite the closure of the catering industry. The retail is mostly filling this gap. According to an importer from northern Italy, sales were almost at a standstill around this time last year, but that is not the case this time. Of course, there is no catering or cruise ships, but wholesale prices stand at an average level. Prices range from 0.70 Euro for the greenest pineapples to 1.00-1.20 Euro for the better-colored ones. There are some problems affecting global transportation. Finding refrigerated containers is difficult and costs have increased dramatically, which also has an impact on the final price. According to information from the importer, the Far East, especially China, is the one hoarding these containers.

Spain: Volumes recover and prices stabilize
Spain is currently importing pineapples from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Kenya. In previous years, there has been a slight increase in the demand for pineapples during Easter, especially for those with a good color. However, this year, the restrictions and limitations imposed because of Covid-19 have had a direct impact on the catering channel, which has resulted in consumption practically not increasing at all. The improvement in sales has to do with the market supply.

So far this year, the demand for green pineapples has remained fairly stable, especially for the top brands. There is more demand for well-colored pineapples, whose prices have remained fairly strong and stable in recent weeks, reaching selling prices of up to 15/16 Euro per box. These prices have been reached partly thanks to the limited volume on the market in this first part of the year. Volumes are now gradually recovering and prices are also stabilizing. As for air-shipped pineapples, the demand continues to rise, although high prices and volume constraints are slowing this growth somewhat. It looks like volumes will start to recover in the next few weeks. No quality problems have been reported so far.

South Africa: Good balance between supply and demand
There's currently a good balance between the pineapple supply and the demand, and according to one grower, the huge increase in pineapple sales is a result of what happened last year, when alcohol was banned due to the Covid lockdown and people started brewing pineapple beer. This created new pineapple consumers and raised product awareness.

In the Eastern Cape, where the fruit is grown, rainfall is still scarce, but KwaZulu-Natal has recorded about 600 mm in six weeks. There were cases of sunburn affecting November's pineapple harvest, which caused a drop in the production in November and December, but currently growers are expecting a good season. Pineapples are harvested all year round.

The scarcity and irregularity of air freight has had a negative impact on pineapple exports to markets such as the US. There has also been a significant drop in the demand from the catering and hospitality industry, which could put some pressure on the fresh produce supply.
The average price of pineapples in Johannesburg's municipal market stands at around R7 (€0.4) per kg.

United States: Easter gives boost to the demand for pineapples
The pineapple supply is scarce at the moment. "This is due to the Easter season," says a California trader. "Also, suppliers are not working full time during Easter, so less is being packed." Overall, volumes are at the same level as last year and sizes 5, 6 and 7 are the most common, with some size 8, too. The supplies arrive mostly from Mexico and Costa Rica. Costa Rica supplies pineapples all year round. Mexico almost manages that, too. Ecuador also supplies some pineapples.

The demand is greater than usual due to the Easter season and wholesale prices stand at around $12-$13. Looking ahead, the trader expects the market conditions to remain stable. "By mid to late April, the price will drop a little bit, by maybe $1-$2. I don't think the demand will be as high as it is now."

Costa Rica: Demand and prices are up
Costa Rica supplies pineapples all year round and the current volumes are large and of good quality. The good weather of recent months has allowed growers to take all the necessary measures to ensure a good harvest. In the months of January and February, the pineapple export volumes grew by 9% compared to the same period last year, and there is enough demand to absorb these additional volumes. The demand and prices increased slightly ahead of Easter and the prospect is that this will also be the case for Mother's Day. Costa Rica is seeing an increase in the demand from China as a result of the Chinese government's decision to suspend the imports from Taiwan, but China still remains a small market for Costa Rica due to the long distance.

READ MORE OVERVIEW GLOBAL PINEAPPLE MARKET- May 2020

China: Taiwanese pineapple imports temporarily suspended
China's General Administration of Customs (GACC) announced on February 26 that pineapple imports from Taiwan would be temporarily suspended because several lots of Taiwanese pineapples were found to contain harmful insects that violate GACC standards. This ban took effect on March 1. Over 97% of all Taiwanese pineapples are intended for the Chinese markets, so the impact on Taiwan's pineapple industry is huge. The Taiwanese pineapple industry has already started looking for alternative destinations. Many have switched to the Japanese market. Local authorities are also calling on Taiwanese people to eat more pineapples and support the growers.

The temporary ban on Taiwanese pineapples has led to a drop in the supply in the Chinese market and a rise in the demand for pineapples from other suppliers. The sale of pineapples from Guangdong and Hainan has taken off and prices have risen sharply. The Philippines, Costa Rica and Panama all export large volumes of pineapples to China. Some traders which used to sell Taiwanese pineapples now import from these countries.

Australia: Pineapple sector hit by labor shortage
The Australian pineapple sector has been hit by labor shortages that affect the entire horticultural industry. One grower said that he had to leave 400-500 tons of pineapples in the field in December because he didn't have enough staff to harvest them. Earlier this month, the main representative body of Australia's pineapple sector expressed concern over reports that six tons of fresh pineapples from Taiwan will be imported into Australia in May. The reason is that Taiwan has lost access to the Chinese market. Growcom is advising consumers to check and be aware of the origin of the fruit, fearing that the inferior quality of the imported pineapples could tarnish the reputation of Australian growers and their brands.

According to the latest statistics from Hort Innovation, 66,069 tons of pineapples (6% less than in the previous year) worth $52.2 million (5% more than in the previous year) were produced in Australia in June 2020. Most of the production takes place in Queensland, where there is year-round supply. 36% of the total production went to the processing industry. No export volumes were recorded and the supply remains entirely limited to the domestic market. As regards consumption, 40% of Australian households buy fresh pineapples.

In Turkey the harvest of apples is in full swing. Turkish company Arona is focusing mostly on the Eastern markets, but nobody seems safe from the huge Polish supply. Although the quality of the apples is great, Polish prices could ruin the Turkish apple party.

Farmers from South Africa will visit the Russian peninsula of Crimea to exchange experience in winemaking, as they face the possibility of losing their farms as part of their country's land reform.

Move over tea. South African coffee beans have climbed to the top of the status ladder in popularity around the globe in recent years. There are several reasons why coffee beans from South Africa are unique compared to other beans.

The Civilian Secretariat for Police Service, headed by police minister Bheki Cele, is proposing to prohibit firearm licences for the purposes of self-defence. Their reasoning, however, is flimsy and full of holes (bullet holes? – Ed) . 

Last August, Koane Potlaki, accused in a house robbery case and allegedly involved in a farm attack, accosted a police officer and relieved him of his service pistol. He went to a farm north of Potchefstroom in the North West Province. There, he ambushed farmworkers, and forced them to lure the farmer to their location near a water tank. The 32-year-old farmer, who was a witness in the case against Potlaki, duly arrived, only to be shot in the chest by Potlaki. He returned fire, killing Potlaki. If he had not done so, Potlaki would certainly have finished the job of silencing the witness against him.

The story is recounted on News24 and collected in a small archive of similar stories of self-defence maintained by Safe Citizen, a public interest group which holds that lawfully armed citizens make themselves, their families and their communities safe. 

There is no data in South Africa on the use of firearms for self-defence. We simply don’t know how many people use legal firearms for this purpose and how such incidents turn out. We also don’t know how many legal firearms are used in the commission of crime. 

This absence of data suggests that the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service, of which police minister Bheki Cele is the head, has no empirical basis for proposing to remove self-defence as a valid reason for obtaining a firearm licence.

Eye-catching stats

This doesn’t stop anti-gun lobbies, like Gun Free South Africa, from citing a bunch of eye-catching factoids. For example, it claims: ‘South African research undertaken in two Johannesburg police precincts shows you are four times more likely to be shot at if you use your gun in self-defence.’ 

In the same media release, it states: ‘…the 1999 study conducted in two Johannesburg police precincts showed that you are 4 times more likely to have your gun stolen from you than to use it in self-defence when under attack.’

Another group, Gun Safe Cities, states: ‘you are four times more likely to have your gun used against you than to be able to use it successfully in self-defence’.

All of these claims rely on a single survey conducted by Anthony Altbeker. 

‘No research backs widely shared statistic about gun ownership risk in South Africa,’ announced AfricaCheck, a fact-checking service. 

Altbeker’s study examined a mere 602 police dockets for gun-related crimes from Johannesburg suburbs Alexandra and Bramley, dating back to the first three months of 1997. 

It found that in 8% of those cases the victims were armed, and of those, nearly 80% of victims lost their guns to their attackers without being able to defend themselves. It also found that those who used their own gun to defend themselves were ‘four times more likely to have been fired upon by their attackers’.

Data quality issues

The latter statistic is used by Gun Free South Africa to make the claim that you’re less safe if you use a firearm to defend yourself. However, this ignores the fact that correlation does not imply causation. In fact, the causation may well run the other way: people who get shot at are more likely to use guns to defend themselves.

  Corruption in South Africa’s firearms registry puts guns and ammo in the hands of gangsters

It also doesn’t take into account the fact that many victims, who successfully deterred an attack by brandishing a firearm, may not have reported it to the police, knowing, as they do, that it is fairly useless to involve the police in any matter other than insurance claims or cleaning up after rioters.

Neither statistic is supported by any comprehensive or recent data. Extrapolating from a small number of cases in one or two suburbs to the entire country is not justifiable. There is no way to tell whether they are close to the average or whether they are statistical outliers. 

According to the AfricaCheck article, Altbeker revisited the question in a subsequent research report, this time commissioned by Gun Free South Africa. Although slightly more representative, it was also published more than 20 years ago, and suffers from what the author himself calls ‘data quality issues’. 

Of course, the possibility of being disarmed by an attacker is a real threat and should be a focus of firearm proficiency training, but it is not a justification for disarming all legal firearm owners a priori. 

Unarmed victims are just what criminals want.

A drop in the bucket

You’ll also hear that every year, some 10 000 licensed firearms, or thereabouts, are stolen. This, it is argued, contributes to the problem of illicit firearms. Cut off this supply and, they claim, you’re making inroads against the illegal use of firearms. 

This is arrant nonsense. While every firearm stolen is one firearm too many, they are often stolen from police officers, who are not about to be disarmed by law. What the anti-gun lobby also won’t tell you is that the number of stolen firearms is down from some 30 000 in 1998. 

More importantly, those firearm thefts are a drop in the bucket. According to the Small Arms Survey of 2018, there are approximately 5,4 million licensed and unlicensed firearms in circulation in South Africa. Of those about 3,2 million are licensed (based on 2015 numbers). 

So there are likely north of 2 million illegal weapons in South Africa (although this number is admittedly an estimate with very wide error margins – it could be as low as 500 000 or as high as 4 million). Assuming 2 million is a reasonable estimate, 10 000 stolen firearms represent 0.5% of the illegal guns in circulation and just over 0.3% of the stock of legal firearms. 

Arguing that firearm theft is the major driver of criminal firearm use in South Africa is spurious. If the government is concerned about illegal weapons, it should act to recover those weapons, instead of disarming law-abiding citizens and leaving them to face those illegal weapons unarmed.

South Africa is nowhere near the most-heavily armed population in the world. The top 25 countries by number of firearms per 100 population include, of course, the United States (120,5) and war-torn countries like Yemen (52,8), but also peaceful and relatively crime-free countries such as Canada (34,7), Austria (30), Norway (28,8), New Zealand (26,3), and Sweden (23,1). France and Germany come in at 19,6 respectively, the same as Iraq. Number 25 on the list is Luxembourg at 18,9 guns per 100 people. By contrast, South Africa has only 9,7 firearms per 100 population, fewer than half of that.

It is clear, then, that crime rates are not closely correlated to legal firearm ownership. On the contrary. 

Crime deterrent

In the US the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published a report commissioned by President Barack Obama, in which it cited research suggesting ‘self-defence can be an important crime deterrent’, and also that ‘the association between self-defensive gun use and injury or loss to the victim have found less loss and injury when a firearm is used’.

‘Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,’ the report says.

This contradicts the view of the anti-gun lobby that owning a firearm for self-defence exposes you to greater risk than being unarmed.

The Police Secretariat’s poorly-drafted socio-economic impact assessment of the proposed bill makes a great number of unsupported statements and inferences, suggesting strong preconceived opinions.

For example, it claims that high levels of gun-related crime are caused by ‘increased availability and abuse of firearms’, which it says persists primarily because the Firearms Control Act ‘does not sufficiently limit the number of firearms’.

The millions of guns that are beyond the remit of the Firearms Control Act, because they are unlicensed in the first place, are a mere afterthought. Those are the weapons most often used in gun-related crimes, yet the Secretariat takes it as a given that restricting legal firearm ownership would reduce gun-related crime. This belief is not supported by any evidence.

It also cites the fact that murder rates in South Africa have steadily risen between 2011/12 and 2016/17, which it attributes in part to increasing availability of firearms. This ignores the fact that murder rates steeply declined between 1994 and 2011, and more importantly, ignores the fact that as the murder rate rose after 2011, the number of legal gun owners consistently decreased.

Murder vs gun ownership

It seems that legal gun ownership is inversely correlated with gun crime, which is the exact opposite of what the government’s documents appear to claim.

If anything, the rising murder rate since 2011 is likely attributable to a captured and deteriorating police force. 

Dubious data 

Perhaps one of the reasons for these weak claims is that the Secretariat’s own data gathering is pretty dubious and is in part reliant on the anti-gun lobby. 

Its 2016 White Paper on Safety and Security, for example (available in full only on the website of Safer Spaces, an NGO that helped develop and implement it), sources statistics about firearm licence issuance to Gun Free South Africa documents. Does the Secretariat not have direct access to its own Central Firearms Registry?

There are also other questionable citations in that White Paper. In one case, it references data from 2009 and 2011 to a book by Robert Chetty that was published in 2000. This book, according to Ludwig Churr, head of research at Safe Citizen, does not itself give any data sources.

Personal safety

The National Development Plan 2030 states: ‘Personal safety is a human right. It is a necessary condition for human development, improved quality of life and enhanced productivity. When communities do not feel safe and live in fear, the country’s economic development and the people’s wellbeing are affected…’

The Police Secretariat uses this passage to support its view that it has a mandate to remove firearms off the streets, starting not with illegal guns, but with legal firearm owners. 

In truth, that passage suggests that law-abiding citizens have a right to defend their own personal safety, and that of their communities, especially in a country where the police is grossly derelict in its duty to secure safety for its citizens.

The anti-gun activists are a small, if vocal, minority. A News24 poll found 89% of respondents believed citizens ought to be able to use firearms to protect themselves, while only 11% think it leads to increased availability and abuse of firearms.

Unfortunately, their blinkered ideology has found favour with the Secretariat, since it plays perfectly into the hands of authoritarians, central planners, looters, and expropriating socialists. Can’t have people defending their land with guns when the government comes to take it, now can we?

It is time for the rest of us, the 89% – whether or not we personally own firearms – to stand against this gross violation of civil rights. 

It's an all-out bakkie war in Mzansi with German automakers Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen keen on challenging the dominance of perennial favourites Toyota and Ford. 

Owner of Ant’s Nest and Ant’s Hill Bush Homes, Ant Baber is a descendant of one of the first English families to settle in the Waterberg in 1886. Over 130 years later, the land still holds much of its original appeal, and continues to attract people from far and wide.

In the 2018 year South African growers packed an all-time record of 16.4 million cartons of 17kgs each of grapefruit for export, end-of-season numbers from the Citrus Growers Association (CGA)show.

"The interest rate policy of the Reserve Bank and the other central banks in the world is the single biggest delusion in economic science for which there is no evidence," says Fanie Brink, an independent agricultural economist.

 He says the Bank's claims that its interest rate policy can control the inflation rate within its inflation targets of 3% to 6% are not true or correct. Its policy can also not protect the value of the currency or stimulate economic growth.

Brink referred to the article “Hoër rentekoerse is ‘onvermydelik’” ("Higher interest rates are 'inevitable'") which appeared in the “Rapport” yesterday.

He says the “inflation rate is determined by all the local and international political and economic factors that have an influence on the demand and supply of goods and services, as well as the value of the currency, respectively.

Economic growth is created by the supply and demand side of the economy, which is proven by Statistics SA every quarter, which is driven by the profit motive of the private sector.”

The inflation rate rose to 5,9% in December 2021, mainly due to the increases in fuel and food prices but has absolutely nothing to do with its local consumption as it is purely the results of international market factors on which the interest rate policy of the Bank have absolutely no influence.

Fuel prices

The international price of crude oil fell last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic to the point where the financial position of some international oil producers weakened significantly that were responsible for the lower crude oil supplies. Now that the greatest danger of the pandemic has subsided, international demand for crude oil has risen sharply again, which the members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia (which is not a member of the organisation) have not yet been able to meet.

The international price of Brent crude oil rose by more than 60% in 2021, which was the largest annual increase in 12 years spurred by the global economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the travel restrictions, the demand for crude oil remained relatively solid, while the supply by the members of OPUL and Russia was reduced.

Global oil prices are expected to rise further in 2022, while OPEC and Russia are likely to stick to their plan to increase crude oil supply to the market by only 400 000 barrels per day in February this year.

The international price increases in crude oil are consequently out of control of the central banks who believe that they can correct the imbalance in the market by raising interest rates which is by no means possible, but which as in the past will once again punish local consumers for price increases for which they are in no way responsible for.

 In South Africa, fuel prices are controlled by the government and determined by a price mechanism on the basis of changes in the international crude oil price, weakening exchange rate which has already weakened significantly due to the destructive socialist ideology of the ANC government, as well as all the taxes and levies of the government on fuel that are increased annually but which have nothing to do with the consumption of fuel by consumers.

 The first question, then, is what can the Bank do about the imbalance in the international crude oil market and the government's fixed fuel price structure? The answer is absolutely nothing!

 Food prices

 International agricultural producer and food prices increased sharply in 2021 due to international increased demand for food, but even more so due to the "disruption of the global supply chain" that will continue in 2022, according to Cargill CEO, David MacLennan, an agricultural giant in the United States of America (USA), due to labour shortages that have become one of the biggest risks facing the food industry.¹⁾

 According to MacLennan, “international food prices rose in October last year to a peak for the past decade which was responsible for even higher grocery bills for households and possible further global famine."

Bad weather hit crops, freight costs skyrocketed and labour shortages hampered the food supply chain. The energy crisis has also caused a dramatic increase in fertilizer costs for farmers around the world.

The search for 'greener' vehicles and aircraft, as well as biodiesel for production and road transport, led to greater competition between food and energy production, which led to limited edible oil supplies. Prices for palm oil, the most consumed vegetable oil in the world, have risen by about 50% in the past year, while soybean oil has risen by 60% and canola oil is near a record price level.

The food and fuel competition for sugarcane, grains and vegetable oils will also, according to MacLennan, become more intense than it has ever been in the past 15 years. The day will come when more agricultural products for clean energy will be used as food, so it will be the duty of the agricultural producers in the world to become more innovative and productive.”

In South Africa this will also have to happen despite the fact that the ANC government is well on its way to finally destroying the agricultural industry, food security and the economy.

The United States of America (USA) already uses 40% of its maize crop to produce bio-ethanol for blending with petroleum produced from crude oil, while Brazil has long been the largest bio-ethanol producer from sugarcane in the world used in vehicles.

The second question is therefore what can the Bank do about these developments that are responsible for the higher international food demand and the higher food prices?

The local prices of agricultural products are traded in a futures market, the South African Futures Market (SAFEX), and are determined solely by the operation of the market forces of supply and demand in the market. The prices of local producers are in fact the international derivative prices of agricultural products traded on the USA futures market, the Chicago Board of Trade, which is also determined purely by the operation of the market forces of supply and demand.

 The third question that needs to be asked is what can the Bank do about the increasing and excessive profit margins on food for which consumers are not responsible and which are in no way related to the demand for food?

In South Africa, the agricultural industry is expected to produce “cheap” food for the poor, according to the latest newsletter from Agri SA, while no farmer in the world can produce food at prices that the poor can afford. Food security can only be sustainable if food production is profitable. Food security is also not the responsibility of agricultural producers but the government that determines the macro and agricultural economic policy of the country.

The fact of the matter is that the “consumer prices” used to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) are not the prices consumers are willing to pay for goods and services, but the prices charged by suppliers based on their total production or manufacturing costs plus excessive profit margins are determined.

The question is also why the international central banks believe that punishing consumers on the demand side with higher interest rates can also solve the problems caused by price increases on the supply side of the economy, such as the current lower crude oil production, disruptions in the global food supply chain or natural disasters that cause severe droughts and floods? How is it possible that they believe that higher interest rates can also solve these problems if they have absolutely no control over the supply-driven inflation²⁾ and administered prices of the government.

The interest costs that consumers pay which the Bank targets with its increases in interest rates is not more than 2% of their total consumption expenditure and the weight is so low that it does not even appear on the list of consumers items that Statistics SA use to compile the CPI, and it is therefore insignificant and negligibly small to make an impact on the inflation rate.

Latest inflation trends

The US inflation rate rose to 6,8% in December, the highest level since 1982 and the sixth month in a row of price increases. Petrol prices rose by 58,1% in November 2021 - the largest increase over 12 months since 1980. Within the food index, the prices of grocery stores rose for the third consecutive month.

The inflation rate in South Africa shot up to 5,9% in December 2021, which is the highest rate in almost 5 years. The biggest contributing factor to the higher inflation rate was the fuel price, which has risen by 34,5% since a year ago. "

The latest increases in inflation rates in the USA and South Africa are the results of very serious changes in the supply and demand of especially crude oil and food, which are very clearly outside the reach of the interest rate policy of the Reserve Bank and the Federal Reserve in the USA that have proven once again that there are no other forces in the economy that are stronger than the market forces of supply and demand.

Prospects for crude oil

International crude oil has so far continued its rise in January 2022 to the highest level in seven years as geopolitical tensions arose in the Middle East. Yemen's Houthi fighters have claimed to have launched a drone strike on the United Arab Emirates - the third largest OPEC producer - causing an explosion and fire on the outskirts of the capital Abu Dhabi and raising crude oil prices to the highest levels since October last year.

 The shrinking global oil stock is also a limiting factor as to why the Goldman Sachs Group raised its crude oil forecasts to $100 a barrel in the third quarter of this year.

 Electricity rates

The next cause for a further large increase in the inflation rate in south Africa will be caused by the expected excessive increases in electricity tariffs which are also set by the government and will once again encourage the Reserve Bank to punish consumers further for price increases for which they are neither responsible for and therefore not the cause for higher electricity tariffs. The higher oil prices have also significantly increased the prices of gas for heating purposes.

Inflation targets

As fuel and food prices are responsible for the large increases in the inflation rate, it is usually excluded from the Consumer Price Index to calculate a "Core Inflation Index" which the Reserve Bank and economic commentators often use as a fallback position if the inflation rate is too close to the upper inflation target moves which is totally misleading and should therefore be abolished.

The inflation targets should be scrapped anyway and interest rates should be determined based on the supply and demand of money and capital in a futures market. Exactly how various agricultural products, such as maize, wheat, soybeans, sunflowers, red meat and wool are traded on the South African Futures Exchange (SAFEX), which is the Agricultural division of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) that was implemented on the same basis as the system used by the Chicago Board of Trade in USA. A futures market for money and capital will be the most accurate and fair way to determine or discover interest rate levels without the intervention of the Reserve Bank!

Simple statistical analyses have shown that the changes in interest rates can in no way provide an explanation for the changes in inflation rate, the value of the currency or economic growth. The changes in interest rates are actually follow the changes in the inflation rate and do not determined it! The Reserve Bank is already planning to raise its interest rates four times by 25 basis points in each quarter this year because it is blinded by a computer model that can never take all the political and economic variables that affect the supply and demand in the economy into account. In any case, the Bank does not have a mandate to try to control the inflation rate but a mandate to protect the exchange rate (value of the currency) in terms of section 224(1) of the Constitution.

 "It is therefore unacceptable that the Reserve Bank, most economic commentators and the media continue to cling to the Bank's interest rate policy that cannot control the inflation rate, protect the value of the currency and stimulate economic growth for which there is no evidence to substantiate these claims. Consumers can by no means be longer held solely responsible for price increases caused by the operation of the international and local market forces of supply and demand and the excessive interference of the government in the economy," says Brink.

Fanie Brink, Independent Agricultural Economist

¹⁾ Cargill CEO Says Global Food Prices to Stay High on Labor Crunch

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-17/cargill-ceo-says-global-food-prices-to-stay-high-on-labor-crunch?sref=q8seIhDd

²⁾  Reserve Bank has no control over supply-driven inflation

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2022-01-16-isaah-mhlanga-reserve-bank-has-no-control-over-supply-driven-inflation/

Cotton is mostly grown in monoculture and is a very pesticide-intensive crop. Although it is only grown on 2.5% of the world’s agricultural land, it consumes 16% of all the insecticides and 6,8% of all herbicides used worldwide.

It’s easy to get mopey and depressed when you read the papers. Violent crime. Rampant corruption. Failing education. Weakening Rand.

The attempt last year to amend Section 25 of the Constitution represented a grave threat to whatever chances for future prosperity South Africa had.

In targeting for the first time a provision in the Bill of Rights, it set a terrible precedent by threatening constitutional protection. Some of its proponents even claimed that the Constitution in its current form would not prevent the ultimate policy goal, Expropriation without Compensation.

That the measure failed to pass deserves to be viewed with relief. But as we at the Institute of Race Relations have warned in the intervening period, this was at best a respite.

A Land Court Bill, currently before Parliament, seeks to place land (and land expropriation) matters into a specially created court. The Bill itself is intended to ‘promote land reform as a means of redressing the results of past discrimination and facilitate land justice.’  Its proposed design raises a very real danger of proceedings being loaded in favour of particular outcomes. For example, two lay assessors may be appointed to sit alongside a judge, and may overrule the latter on matters of fact. The Bill is silent on how the assessors will be appointed, and it is far from impossible that  activists hostile to land ownership would be in a position to preside over cases. On certain issues, such as whether ‘nil’ compensation should be awarded, or whether a given property has been abandoned, it is likely that the views of these assessors could be decisive.

   How to counter the Expropriation and Land Court Bills

In addition, there is the Expropriation Bill. President Ramaphosa has declared the government’s intention to pass the Bill into law this year. Dating back in its current iteration to 2019 (but with a policy lineage that extends back over more than a decade), it would establish a new regime for expropriation of property. Among other things, it defines expropriation – and so too, any entitlement to compensation – so as to require the state to take ownership of expropriated property.

This suggests that merely depriving an owner of something – without the state’s acquiring ownership in turn, as was the case with South Africa’s mineral resources under the custodianship provision of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002 – would not qualify as expropriation. This in turn would make a mass ‘custodial’ taking of a particular asset achievable without any requirement for compensation.

Move on property rights

Simply put, despite the Constitution holding for the moment, the mechanisms for proceeding with a move on property rights are being put in place.

At the same time, there has been a chorus of voices expressing harsh criticisms of the constitutional order, in part or as a whole. These voices include tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala, former cabinet minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi as well as academics Professors Sipho Seepe and Eddy Maloka.

The basic assertion is that the malaise confronting South Africa arises from a lack of radicalism, this having been constrained by a timid compromise in the 1990s and the Constitution that embodied it.

Thus, Prof Maloka says that: ‘Our approach should not be piecemeal – about land, the judiciary, or this and that. Instead, we should be bold and decisive and overhaul the entire dispensation to align it with our times.’

Prof Seepe was more direct, attacking both the ANC and the state, claiming that ‘the post-1994 dispensation legitimised ill-gotten economic gains under apartheid.’ The ANC had been infiltrated, he went on to write, to the extent that it is ‘now embraced by even the most racist among our citizens’ (does this mean that the ANC is attracting large numbers of bigoted white voters..?), and ‘a state without any revolutionary content is a threat to our hard earned democratic dispensation.’

Sisulu denounced the judiciary as ‘mentally colonised’, while Zikalala proposed replacing the supremacy of the Constitution (and the law) with Parliamentary democracy. ‘We want to issue the call for us to debate whether it is not time to move away from absolute rule by the Constitutional Court to a situation where we have a parliamentary democracy in which the voice of the people who elected is supreme to all other voices,’ Zikalala declared.

Counterproductive

In a very real sense, this is an extension of the attempt to alter Section 25. It sees the constitutional order as the problem, not the counterproductive nature or impracticability of policy or its inept implementation. This is part populism, but arguably more fundamentally ideological.

Unsurprisingly, in all of this, land is a central motif. Thus, Minister Sisulu opines: ‘The land is where it all begins. And the law of the land makes or breaks.’ Prof Seepe asserts that land is fundamental to the true revolutionary posture whose absence he bemoans: ‘Land is at the core of any anticolonial struggle. Reclaiming the land would have been the first order of business. With the loss of the ideological narrative, Africans have no control of the future.’

In a similar vein, for Mr Ramathlodi, the Constitution is the culprit: ‘The essence of the 1913 Land Act retained under the New Constitution in section 25 must be reconsidered.’ 

Contained within all of this is the notion that with a more aggressive and assertive form of political mobilisation, with the removal on the limits on the state’s powers, veritable economic miracles are possible. (In 2018, President Ramaphosa claimed that EWC would turn the country into a Garden of Eden – an attempt at allegory that fell flat.) To quote Mr Ramathlodi: ‘In this regard, the developmental state must be activist and take out scissors to perform the necessary caesarean birth.’

Lyrical though that last comment is, it is also delusional. A good part of the reason for the disappointing outcomes of land reform – and support of small business, policing, education and so on – is precisely that the state is not up to the task. South Africa’s state is not developmental, although it certainly tries to be activist. The result, in practical terms, is a mixture of some dire laissez-faire neglect in some areas, and the constraints of an intrusive and often extortionate government apparatus in others.

Actually, in this respect Prof Seepe is partially correct when he says of the ANC that ‘instead of using the state as an instrument at the service of the poor, it does the opposite.’ But he fails to note that much of the blame for this can be placed squarely at the door of the ANC’s conscious decision to politicise the state administration in the 1990s, thereby preventing a meritocratic, professionalised civil service from emerging. In so doing, it destroyed the prospect of a developmental state.

Broad ideological thrust

Such actions were, however, in keeping with the broad ideological thrust of the ANC and with its National Democratic Revolution. One might describe them as the natural outgrowth of the revolutionary impulse.

South Africa’s future needs a good deal less ideology, and a good deal more pragmatism. This is readily apparent to anyone who cares to look, but is unfortunately not entirely clear to our political and intellectual elites.

The disparaging of the constitutional order is intrinsically a threat to property rights, and to land ownership, both on the part of those who own and those who aspire to do so. Indeed, a successful land reform programme holds value for all of us – but it will not be delivered by the ideologues and venal individuals who are using it to frame their arguments.  

The EWC agenda, and all that surrounds it, remains very much in place, and the present is no time for complacency.

Admittedly, it is too early to tell how most Southern African countries will cope with the expected weak El Niño in the summer season.

In the Langkloof most topfruit orchards have finished flowering and growers are in the process of fruit thinning. Their dams are full and yet the new season has brought an unwelcome irony: a year ago, Langkloof dams were 30% full and the nearby Kouga Dam 12.6% full (later dropping to a mere 6%), but there were no water restrictions on Langkloof fruit producers.

SA poultry farmers must raise their efficiency to compete, says Ted McKinney, undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs in the US agriculture department.

Between the end of the Canadian cherry season and the start of the Chilean season, at the beginning of October, there is a period of about two to three weeks when the UK market has no other cherry supplier than South Africa.

October’s sales figures were also the highest monthly total in the past three years, since October 2015.

Of the total vehicle sales, 74.1% represented dealer sales, 20.2% represented sales to the vehicle rental industry, 3.2% to government and 2.5% to industry corporate fleets.

The South African economy continued to experience difficult conditions with consumers’ disposable income remaining under pressure. Continued weakness in the latest Purchasing Managers’ Indices and the Reserve Bank’s Leading Indicator suggested that business conditions would probably remain difficult over the short term.

On the positive side, new-vehicle affordability had continued to improve with new car price inflation remaining well below the Consumer Price Index for the past 15 months.

Automotive companies were also offering attractive sales incentives.

Naamsa noted that export sales had also registered strong gains, in line with industry expectations. The 34 134 vehicles exported represented a 20.9% year-on-year improvement.

The association said vehicle exports remain a function of the direction of the global economy which continues to reflect fairly robust growth despite rising protectionism and trade disputes.

The momentum of export sales had increased over the past few months and, taking into account relatively strong order books reported by most vehicle exporters, exports should improve further and reflect strong upward momentum in 2019 and subsequent years.

The projection of industry export sales for 2019 was at 385 000 export units compared with an estimated figure of about 340 000 for 2018.