WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-21 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Yep, farmers might as well start stashing cash away and not repairing their farms and equipment. The ANC will be taking your farms too – if you don’t become bankrupt before then. Jan]
By Justine Gerardy
Jan Basson was in his bakkie when the international oil price hit $112 a barrel on Tuesday.
As the news drove global concerns about supplies, a weakening US dollar and seemingly unstoppable prices, Basson immediately knew what the bleak domestic upshot would be. An excellent maize price of three months ago had just become average.
“You just listen to it and you wonder where we are going,” said the 38-year-old farmer from Bapsfontein near Pretoria.
The day before, fertiliser costs rose by R1 000 per ton due to Chinese export restrictions and the price of crude oil. Diesel had gone up to R9.40 a litre two weeks earlier. And it cost an average 45 percent more to grow food than the year before.
Maize farmers start harvesting in a few weeks’ time and re-plant fields in October. But the costs of growing food are less certain. And while current grain prices and harvest levels are strong, input costs have sky-rocketed and are still uncertain.
“The markets aren’t stable. You don’t have a base from where you can budget at this stage,” said Basson, who with 250ha is a small farmer. “If I plant my maize in October, I don’t know if I’ll reap any reward next year. It’s a gamble.”
South Africa’s free-market system is based on supply and demand. Global grain supply is at its lowest levels amid huge demand from growing economies and massive input costs.
The knock-on effects are worldwide. More meat eaters in the developing economies of China and India, and the biofuels industry, have put pressure on grains. Droughts, as in the Ukraine and Australia, and poor international harvests have affected global supply.
And export restrictions in grain-producing countries such as India and Egypt have led to rocketing market trade.