Good day, I’m Sabrina Dean with your agriculture news

A respected food and agriculture roleplayer has warned that without the contribution of agriculture, the rural economy of the country would face total collapse.

Ferdi Meyer of the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy was responding to a question during a Nation in Conversation panel discussion at Nampo. He says not only do farmers and the agriculture sector provide a lot of social support, but rural economies are entirely dependent on the continued existence of the sector.

The discussion focussed on a term known as the multiplier effect and the true value of agriculture to the economy. Meyer says there is a multiplier effect before and after the farm gate.

Meanwhile well-known economist Mike Schussler also participated in the panel discussion. He says it is important to understand that GDP is a value added concept and doesn’t truly reflect the true value of agriculture’s contribution to the economy:

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A solar powered golf car to use as a farm runabout, “green” targets and multi-purpose horse brushes are some of the items that have won prizes at the annual Grain SA and Omnia farmers’ patents competition.

The competition proved again that the spirit of innovation still flows strongly among Southern African farmers’. This year the competition received 43 entries across nine categories. Judges announced the winners on Tuesday.

Winners were revealed on Tuesday. Bertus Goosen took the honours in the machine, implement and agriculture equipment category with his loading apparatus. Goosen also won another category with his solar powered golf car and took first prize in both the tool and garden categories.

His daughter Nicolene also held the families name high with her win in the learners’ category for a range of multipurposes horse brushes.

Nation in conversation