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The 13 November issue of Farmer’s Weekly takes a look at the wine industry and how it is currently performing. Erasmus says even though government has allowed for wine sales to resume under the current Covid-19 lockdown level, the industry is still suffering due to a lack of wine tourism. She says some countries have been allowed to travel to South Africa, but there has not been much tourism in or out of the country, especially during the past few months. Erasmus adds that the outlook for tourism does not look very favourable at the moment as many countries in Europe have once again entered into Covid-19 lockdowns.

According to Vinpro, the tourism sector contributes about R7,2 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) via the wine industry, while it supports about 36 000 jobs. Erasmus adds that Vinpro also revealed that on average wineries rely on the wine tourism for about 15% of their revenue. She says for smaller wineries that generate less than R10 million in turnover per annum, their reliance on tourism can be as high as 41%. Furthermore, Erasmus says the industry is “hoping and lobbying hard to have tourism restored to the Western Cape so that the shortfall in income for those wineries can be addressed”.

Lastly, readers can also look forward to reading a reflection on the recent medium-term budget policy statement that was delivered by the Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni. This article specifically looks at what was allocated for the agricultural department. Erasmus says as for many government departments and institutions, there will be a reduction in the budget for the agricultural department over the next three years. Revised spending for this year is down from about R29 billion to around R28,5 billion. She says that as a result of this reduction coupled with difficulties created by the lockdown and pandemic, many of the programmes within the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform, have revised their outlook downward. This includes, amongst others, the revision done by the department for smallholder and subsistence farmers that will be supported during this fiscal year from an initial estimate of 145 000 farmers to 68 000 farmers.

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