Farmers Have Probably Never Had It So Good

Farmers have a reputation for being habitual complainers. There is never enough rain, they say, except when it is flooding, or when the climate is right the market prices are wrong, and when food prices go through the roof they are the first society seeks to vilify. Yet people outside the farming sector tend to sympathise with farmers, for theirs is a hard life.

But these days, complain as they might, there has probably never been a better time to be a farmer in SA or anywhere else.

The reason is simple economics: relatively free trade in an era determined by industrialisation of the most populous countries, India and China, has meant world stocks of basic foods are at their lowest since 1963, and are expected remain at these levels at least until 2015.

At the Agricultural Business Chamber's biennial conference this week, speaker after speaker urged SA's farmers to maximise the opportunities presented by global conditions. Even if growth in the US is expected to slow significantly and moderately in Europe and Japan, growth in emerging and developing economies will be maintained at a rapid pace with continued strength across all regions, says Free State University agricultural economics professor Johan Willemse.