There were long delays and a large backlog of applications for new chemicals and new medicines at the Office of the Registrar of Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Seeds and Remedies, the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz) said yesterday, while highlighting the urgent need to overhaul and modernise that system.
While South African regulators and farmers have always been eager and flexible to adopt new technologies, including biological and mechanical innovations, which have helped the country to be nearly on par with the likes of Brazil with crop yields per hectare, this was not how things were progressing currently, according to Agbiz’s chief economist, Wandile Sihlobo.
He said farmers, input manufacturers and organised agriculture had expressed their concern about the long delays in getting critical inputs approved by the Office of the Registrar of the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Seeds and Remedies Act 36 of 1947.
Sihlobo said with the country having designated agriculture as one of the sectors that would help drive economic recovery and rural economic activity for the coming years, this meant that the seed industry and various agrochemicals ideal for agricultural progress should be made available by the regulators to the farming community to achieve this national goal.
“As such, the multiple streams of the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan, which is the country’s plan based on a social compact to drive agricultural progress, should prioritise the inputs and take to heart various hindrances that agribusiness role players and commodity associations highlight about the slowing trend of technology adoption in the country in the recent past,” he said.
Agbiz said agricultural productivity growth, the increase in yield per unit (land/animal) depended largely on technological innovation and the adoption of new seeds, new equipment, new genetics as well as effective animal medicine.
Over the years, South African farmers rapidly adopted new technology either imported or developed from the local research and development processes at the Agricultural Research Council, universities and by the private sector. The organisation said this had set South Africa's agricultural sector, apart from much of the African countries in terms of output per hectare.
“It is obvious that governments need to regulate any new inputs to ensure that humans, animals and the environment will not be harmed by the introduction of new chemicals, fertiliser or seed.
“This regulatory process requires independent scientific assessments and evaluation of the trial data provided by the technology developers/innovators. Some of these new inputs are often urgently needed to counter plant diseases or animal diseases that impact negatively and, therefore, the government processes must be agile, fast and rigorous to ensure the timely release of these new inputs to farmers and businesses,” Sihlobo said.
Sihlobo said that disappointingly, the anecdotal evidence of the growing sentiment about the reluctance of the South African agricultural regulators to approve the release of new technologies presented large risks for the competitiveness of the agricultural sector in the coming years.
This issue should be central in the various commodity deep dives of the master plan so that the country would emerge with a unanimous government-business-labour view on agricultural technologies for driving the agricultural sector.
“Admittedly, this is an economic view, and there are undoubtedly scientific considerations that are essential before countries make any notable calls for the adoption of technologies.
“Still, this is a matter that should be well discussed, and there should be close collaboration between agribusinesses, commodity organisations and government. Ultimately, we should remember that our common interest is a prosperous and inclusive South African agriculture and agribusiness sector,” Sihlobo said.
He said while differences in opinion might exist about various technologies and registration of new agrochemicals, such should be discussed with speed and ensure that in the process, maintaining and boosting South Africa’s agricultural productivity was an ultimate goal for all role-players involved.
Business Report