South Africa’s agricultural sector may see an uneven recovery in 2025

We continue to see more evidence that 2025 will likely be an uneven recovery for South Africa’s agriculture. The horticulture (fruits and vegetables), and field crops (grains, oilseeds and sugarcane) are experiencing excellent yield recovery, benefiting from better summer and winter rains. But the livestock and poultry industries face some constraints. The effects of these divergences are also clear in the jobs data for the sector, with the losses in the livestock industry. The major challenge in the livestock industry is animal disease, mainly the foot and mouth disease in cattle. We also see some risks in the sector broadly emanating from the fractured trade environment, particularly the exports to the US. We discuss all this in this episode of our podcast.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast.

*Wandile Sihlobo is chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa