The province's Finance MEC, Motlalepula Rosho, announced this when she tabled plans for the 2021/22 financial year on Tuesday. She further stated that the budget, amongst others, provides for programmes and projects such as Poverty Relief and Infrastructure Development. Furthermore, R216 million is earmarked for farmer support programmes which targets to support 2 500 smallholder farmers.

The Department of Police, Roads and Transport in the Free State will be visiting various districts in the province where livestock is a prominent business. This follows after MEC Sam Mashinini visited Ladybrand in the Mantsopa Local Municipality to launch an anti-stock theft awareness campaign to make farmers and livestock owners aware of the importance of branding their animals and being more vigilant. The department’s spokesperson, Hillary Mophete, says the awareness campaign was launched to encourage and educate farmers and livestock owners on how to mark their animals as prescribed by the Animal Identification Act of 2002. She says stock theft still remains a persistent problem, especially on farms situated on the borders of the Free State.

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The Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) improved from 61 points in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 64 in the first quarter of 2021. According to Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber, this is the highest level of the Agbiz/IDC index since the second quarter of 2014. He explains that a level above the neutral 50-point mark implies that agribusinesses are optimistic about operating conditions in South Africa. These results likely reflect not only the robust performance of the local agricultural sector in 2020 - where gross value-added expanded by 13,1% year-on-year - but also positive early signs for another season of large harvests in 2020/21 from most sub-sectors.

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