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In the first news story this week, Farmer’s Weekly looks at the continuing trouble at Tongaat Hulett. Ryan says sugarcane growers and input providers were placed under severe financial pressure when the company failed to pay them for September deliveries at the end of October.

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However, since then approximately 4 000 smallholder growers received payment in the first week of November.

A sugarcane farmer in KwaZulu-Natal confirmed that commercial growers were paid a week later.

This follows after Tongaat Hulett announced in October that it had placed its South African operations in voluntary business rescue, blaming years of high and increasing debt levels and historic mismanagement under previous leadership.

The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) has confirmed cases of Citrus Blackspot (CBS) in Botswana, saying it could affect citrus production in the country. Ryan adds that the disease had been found in parts of Botswana’s central and northeast districts.

The IPPC indicated that there was a possibility that the disease could spread to other areas of the country, and insured farmers of Botswana that procedures to eradicate the disease were being implemented.

A Botswana citrus farmer has expressed concern that the outbreak of CBS could result in financial loss as most producers targeted the fresh produce market which does not accept blemished fruit.

Furthermore, scores of new and undescribed insects, plants and animal species have been discovered in the area earmarked for the establishment of a new grasslands national park in the Eastern Cape Drakensberg.

Ryan says the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for nature South Africa said in a statement that the intention was to establish the new national grasslands park in a working agricultural landscape through voluntary stewardship agreements with both communal and private landowners.

The area earmarked for this project is situated in the north-eastern grasslands of the Eastern Cape.

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