South Africa Plays a Critical Role in the Continent’s Crop Protection Industry
This year, South African farmers are facing environmental stresses, like drought and the rising costs in energy and crop inputs such as fertilizer, machinery, crop protection, and seed. Growers focusing on fruit exports also face aging railways, transport, and harbor-handling challenges. These disruptive factors are affecting grower profitability and impacting the crop inputs industry.
Multinational companies such as Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva, BASF, and FMC provide products to a well-organized distribution channel. A vast number of crop protection products sold in South Africa are locally formulated using imported ingredients from China, the United States, France, and Germany. Companies importing, manufacturing, and distributing agrochemicals are members of CropLife South Africa, which represents the crop protection industry in the region.
Products used for pest or disease control on plants must be registered under Act 36 of 1947 (the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act). But according to Christian Giesel, Head of Crop Protection Marketing, Syngenta, the regulatory environment is stifling existing crop protection technologies that could contribute to food security.
“The backlog in government registrations of new crop protection technologies is also constraining the industry,” Giesel says.
Kobus Meintjes, Bayer Crop Science Country Commercial Lead: South Africa, agrees.
“The biggest challenge to growing the market is the pace of regulatory approvals. To register a new product in South Africa is a significant investment, and the delays in registration because of the regulatory system influences the return on investment.”
The South African crop protection market is the largest in Africa and serves farmers in the row crop, horticulture, citrus, nuts, and vines in the deciduous, subtropical, and forestry markets. Corn, soybean, sunflower, and cotton are the most important row crops produced in the summer rainfall area, with wheat and canola produced in the winter rainfall area.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains a concern in the entire agricultural value chain in South Africa. South Africa is largely dependent on Russia for ammonium nitrate used to produce fertilizer. The war is also impacting South African fruit exports, especially citrus exports to Russia, and growers are forced to find alternative markets.
“The ability of South African exporters to find alternative markets for their produce could have a significant impact on farmers’ profitability and their ability to spend on crop protection products in the next season,” Meintjes explains.
Opportunities for Biologicals
Meintjes said that crop protection products that do not leave residues present a development opportunity in South Africa. “This is critically important for our export markets and can include traditional crop protection products as well as biological products and biostimulants,” he says.
Crop protection companies are also investing in biological products. According to Giesel, the biological product segment of the market has significantly grown compared to conventional chemistry solutions, particularly in the export crop segment where strict European Union regulations on chemical residues and controlled substances are forcing growers to look for alternatives.
Stricter environmental regulations are expected to impact the herbicide and insecticide segments. Producers are more conscious of sustainable pest control methods and are implementing integrated pest management systems and programs. Various companies are focusing on biological pest control.
“The biological crop protection market represents roughly an eighth of the total crop protection market in South Africa. We are expecting this market to grow as companies are allocating significant resources toward research and development of new biological technologies to meet the demands of stricter regulatory environments both abroad and locally,” Giesel adds.
Integrated Pest Management Programs
Insectec is a local South African company based in Letsitele, in Limpopo, and jointly owned by three farmer groups, namely Mahela Group, Komati Fruit Group, and Laeveld Citrus. Insectec offers a wide array of predatory mites and insects, parasitic wasps, beneficial nematodes, traps, and pheromones to farmers.
The efficacy of natural enemies to control pests is impossible to ignore and have become an integral part of integrated pest management (IPM) control programs. IPM enables farmers to adhere to Global GAP standards and supermarket maximum residue limits requirements on both local and export markets.
“Biological pest control forms the cornerstone of our integrated pest management strategy at Mahela and focuses on the long-term prevention and management of pests and to reduce the use and impact of pesticides on the environment and biodiversity,” says Eddie Vorster, Director Citrus Production, Mahela Group.
Biostimulants and Breeding Techniques
Other international companies such as BioBee, an Israeli company, and Madumbi, part of the Swiss-based Andermatt Group, based in KwaZulu-Natal also serve the market and offer a wide array of bio management solutions and biostimulants.
South African authorities have also recognized the importance of biostimulants in the agricultural sector through the establishment of the Group III fertilizer registrations. As a result of these requirements, future biostimulant products entering the South African market must be backed by science.
According to Dr. Nicole Hart, Managing Director at Afrikelp, the use of natural plant biostimulants can play a significant role in improving plants’ resistance to abiotic environmental stresses.
Drought, water quality, and soil salinity present challenges to farmers and biostimulants can contribute to enhancing plant growth, improving resource use efficiency, and increasing tolerance to unfavorable soil and environmental conditions. Afrikelp is a South African-based, international manufacturer of liquid seaweed biostimulants.
Most commercial farmers in South Africa are early adopters of agricultural technologies that enable them to mitigate production risks, improve yields, and produce food and fiber of excellent quality.
New breeding techniques and biotechnologies support sustainable food and fiber production and corn, soybean, and cotton farmers in South Africa have a wide variety of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance biotechnology traits to choose from.
Insect resistant traits offer built-in protection against lepidoptera species such as stalk borers (busseola fusca and chilo partellus), fall armyworm (spodoptera frugiperda), and cut worm in corn, and helicoverpa armigera (African bollworm) in cotton and soybean.
Agtech Synergies
Agriculture currently finds itself in a digital revolution that changed the way farmers look at research, products, and data. Digital platforms opened the door to more sustainable farming through higher predictability of yield, improved input use, ease of applications, as well as customized agronomical support services.
Meintjes believes that the synergies between crop protection and digital technologies in precision farming systems will allow crop protection products to be used more accurately. Variable rate applications (VRA) brought greater efficiency in seed, fertilizer and crop protection applications and farmers are using these technologies to optimize the return on their annual input investments.
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