According to Agri SA president Jaco Minnaar, South Africa needs to focus on logistics, as transport infrastructure is a crippling problem for the sector, to be a globally competitive, agricultural produce exporting nation.
A survey done by Statistics South Africa in late 2021 revealed that only about 8% of all agricultural products were transported by rail, despite it being much cheaper than road transport. The result is excess hauler traffic on roads, with all the negative effects it causes.
Research published by the World Bank shows that, in 2020, it took about 92 hours on average to export goods from South Africa, compared with 12.7 hours in more efficient countries. Exports also cost about eight times more from South Africa than from other countries.
Minnaar: "Our harbors, with the same equipment as other countries, handle about a third of their volumes, according to the big shipping companies. Hence, the same report by the World Bank found that our harbors are the worst-performing of the evaluated harbors worldwide.”
Horticulture, which is primarily export-oriented, experienced many problems with logistics and the current strike at transport agency Transnet is certainly not helping. These and other factors have ensured that there is a weakening in profitability in the industry, he adds.
Source: engineeringnews.co.za
