With farmers feeling the pinch of rising fuel costs and fertiliser shortages, agriculture minister John Steenhuisen said the recent opening of the Strait of Hormuz should help ease that expected pressure.
This comes as Iran granted South African vessels safe passage through the strait, which comes amid a fragile two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, which was agreed upon on Wednesday.
Speaking to Sowetan at the DA federal congress in Midrand, Steenhuisen said the government has already implemented measures to help with the subsidising of the levy but added the ceasefire would be an extra push.
“The government has already subsidised the fuel hike increase by subsidising the levy. And obviously, now that this appears to be a ceasefire, we hope to see some normalisation. But obviously, what we have to do is build far more localised resilience against the effects of this,” he said.
READ | Agricultural sector braces for hard times
He added that with diesel and fertiliser being affected, this ceasefire will help the sector.
“It’s not only on diesel, but it’s also on fertiliser; two ships are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz with fertiliser we desperately need for our winter planting now. And we’ve lost our ability to produce the type of volumes of fertiliser we used to under Foskor, with the decline in our rail [capability] and the decline in our ability through Richards Bay to mix the two,” Steenhuisen said.
“So we’ve got to look at building and rebuilding that so that we’re able to insulate South Africa against external shocks like this.”
He said tensions such as this are the reason he pushes for biofuel alternative solutions.
“We should be doing biodiesel and biofuels in South Africa, because that will also assist the agricultural sector to grow and be transformative for things such as the sugar sector, sorghum, and so on that can then have options not only to sell sugar but also to manufacture biofuels in South Africa,” he said.
Meanwhile, as the country manages the foot-and-mouth disease vaccination rollout, Steenhuisen said he hopes by mid-next year the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) will have ramped up production.
“The ARC has, for the first time since 2019, started to produce vaccines in the country. The first 12,900 rolled off two months ago, and just last week we took delivery of the first 20,000 of the new batch, and we hope by mid next year that the ARC will have ramped up their facility to be able to produce the millions that we need in the future.”
Sowetan
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