South Africa’s largest passion fruit farming enterprise is moving its operations to Ghana in response to Transnet’s inability to operate South Africa’s ports smoothly. In the process, it will be taking millions of rands of investment and hundreds of jobs with it.
Roslesia, which is spread across the White River area in Mpumalanga and the Groblersdal area in Limpopo, is in the process of uprooting all 200ha of passion fruit plants. According to Charles Rossouw, a shareholder in the business, the land would be converted to macadamias, which are less vulnerable to malfunctioning ports due to their long shelf life.
Rossouw said that during the past season, disruptions at South Africa’s ports had cost the company millions of rands in spoilt fruit due to issues with cooling systems and delays in shipments.
Source: farmersweekly.co.za