Task team to investigate
rescue measures, writes Ray Smuts
THAT THE Western Cape fruit export industry is going through rough waters is an open secret.
A clearer indication of just how rough those waters are has come from the province's agricultural MEC Gerrit van Rensburg, who bluntly asserts that 50% of all deciduous and citrus farmers in the Western Cape will go bankrupt in the next five years if the market does not improve.
Expressing his concern, Van Rensburg says the situation has been deteriorating for several years now to reach a crisis this season.
In an attempt to investigate the economic impact of the crisis and come up with ways to counteract it, the fruit industry and provincial agriculture department have joined forces to form a combined task team to investigate new technologies, new markets, and report back by July 18.
The Western Cape fruit export industry is the province's largest employer, providing jobs for 180 000 people and contributing
R2 billion in foreign exchange each year.
The plight of producers
is borne out by some
grim facts:
l In Ceres the average farm
has debts of R7 million.
l Table grape exporters at Paarl are expected to make an average loss lof R7 000 per hectare this season.
l Export grape farms in the Hex River Valley are among the worst hit where about half of an estimated 60 000 jobs have been lost, contributing even further to already unacceptable emloyment levels.
l Towns like and Grabouw and De Doorns are dependent almost entirely on fruit exports and the latter is reported to be at a standstill.
l European farmers receive generous subsidies from their governments, giving them an advantage over their South African counterparts.
Hex River Valley farmer Attie van Rensburg had been trying to sell his farm for over a year before applying for liquidation, but questions who would want to buy when all farms are running at a 30% loss.
A number of reasons have been put forward for the crisis, not the least being that deregulaton of the fruit industry has seen an increasing number of exporters trying to sell products abroad - about 169 for deciduous fruit and 166 for citrus last year.
The fruit scenario is akin to wine as fastidious consumers around the globe display preferences for new and different products. (The world demand for red wine has led many South African producers to uproot their white vineyards and put down red, for example).
While there will always be a place for the Granny Smith, fruit industry fashions are changing as newer bi-colour apple varieties like the Pink Lady become more popular and fetch higher prices - yet most farmers are still growing the older favourites, Golden Delicious or Granny Smith.
This, in the opinion of Fred Meintjies of the Deciduous Fruit Producer's Trust, boils down to producers failing to respond to changing consumer trends.
Seedless grapes, more difficult to grow in the Western Cape, are becoming more popular overseas as are exotic fruits like strawberries, a dilemma for the grower as switching crops would mean no harvest for several years - something they could ill afford as things now stand.
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