AGRICULTURE
Ports add another layer of risk. Farmer ' s Weekly reported in June 2026 that the Port of Cape Town had been ranked last out of 400 ports in the World Bank and S & P Global Market Intelligence ' s Container Port Performance Index 2025, and for fruit exporters, poor port performance does not stay inside the harbour. It raises costs, increases spoilage risk, and threatens competitiveness in markets where timing matters, showing a farmer can do everything right and still lose margin elsewhere in the system.
The Gulf route carries its own pressure. CGA Citrus Marketing Forum minutes from 24 April 2026 recorded that the Middle East market was under considerable strain from regional conflict and elevated logistics costs, with lemon prices softening from US $ 25 to under US $ 20 FOB and logistics costs rising by an estimated US $ 4 per carton, in a year when diesel for inland transport has averaged R35 to R40 a litre.
Electricity is harder to absorb than most costs. Irrigation, cold storage, and pumping systems depend on power that is both available and affordable, and a farm cannot always shift its use into a cheaper time band on a schedule regulators set. Agri SA has welcomed Nersa ' s draft market inquiry findings on tariff structures, saying they provide " an important foundation for developing a fairer electricity pricing framework," though that competitiveness is still squeezed by costs farmers cannot control.
South African farmers and agribusinesses have repeatedly adapted to drought, disease, weak infrastructure, and policy uncertainty, and that resilience is real. The danger is that resilience becomes a polite way of asking producers to absorb failure elsewhere in the economy.
Agriculture depends on long-term decisions, orchards, irrigation, cold rooms, packhouses, and export relationships built over years, and when confidence weakens the consequences surface later, in delayed upgrades and missed opportunities.
Agriculture needs working systems, not just full silos, because a good harvest cannot by itself repair confidence. For South African agriculture to keep carrying food security, export ambition and rural employment, the business environment around farming has to become less hostile to those who still choose to produce. �
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