The weather forecasters tell us that we have exited the El Niño drought period and are transitioning into a La Niña event, which typically brings rain. Such a weather outlook would boost agricultural production.

Listen to this article 6 min Listen to this article 6 min On 3 July, I was at the South African Society for Animal Science 2024 Congress in East London. The livestock and poultry industries account for nearly half of South Africa's agricultural economy.

Themes covered at the congress included animal diseases, reproduction, nutrition, climate change and animal welfare.

My task was to kickstart the day with reflections on the South African agricultural economic conditions and policy options to boost growth in the sector.

I view South Africa's agricultural economic performance in the first half of 2024 as mixed. One can broadly categorise our farming economy into three subsectors: horticulture, livestock and field crops.

Horticulture -- fruits and vegetables -- had a reasonably positive start to the year, benefiting from improved dam levels for irrigation and a stable electricity supply. All of South Africa's fruit and vegetables are under irrigation.

The livestock industry is recovering after an intense period of animal diseases (although there remain cases of foot-and-mouth disease in some regions of the country). The better grazing veld due to early rains in the season and late rains in April have helped somewhat. The poultry industry is also...