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The news section of the 4 December issue of Farmer’s Weekly starts off with some good news. Erasmus explains that in the third quarter of 2020, when the country saw more job losses, the farming sector saw more people being employed. She adds that most of the agriculture sector experienced a good year, despite the many challenges that were brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Erasmus says this excludes sectors such as the tobacco and wine industries as they had suffered during the hard lockdown.

This edition also takes a look at the uncertainty in the canned fruit industry in South Africa. Despite a good harvest of fruits such as peaches, pears and apples, farmers producing for the canning industry says that the market they usually supply to, particularly in Japan and other markets in Asia, are still down due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This, as large catering companies and hotel groups in Asia, that are big supporters of the canning fruit industry, are not buying these products as they used to.

Lastly, readers can look forward to an article covering a story about the recent announcement that China has denied permission for South Africa to export pork to that country. The article also follows up on what the next steps will be for the pork industry in order to address this issue.

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