To better support farmers poised to become the commercial farmers of tomorrow, AFGRI Group Holdings (AGH) and its invested company focused on agriculture, AFGRI, have enhanced on a concept that has made a massive impact over the past five years in farmer development.

The most appropriate thing to write today, given that I am currently gazing over the beautiful wine farms of Stellenbosch, would indeed be wine. Instead, I will be blogging about good old maize, as I have just received the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report for major grains and oilseeds.

Farmers face a dual challenge. How can they produce the food required to feed the world, while protecting the planet at the same time? The solution will rest on finding effective ways to minimize the losses of energy, water and nutrients associated with farming.

When thinking of careers to pursue most of us don’t consider a career in the agricultural sector, but it is one of the most important industries when it comes to any country’s development and food security.

Every year, agricultural writers working in different parts of South Africa (SA) nominate their local candidates for farmer, agriculturist and new entrant into commercial farming as regional winners.

South Africa is 121 000 000 hectares. Only 4 000 000 hectares is under summer cropland = 3.3% of total land.

An opponent of environmental protectionism, a proponent of free markets and backed by Brazil's huge agriculture industry, in six weeks’ time President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will take office.

Yellow and white maize prices and soybean prices have increased significantly in the past two months. This is in line with industry expectations, the Rand drooped tremendously in the past 2 months which supporting maize exports, hence supporting prices.

After entering a technical recession in the second quarter of the year, the South African agricultural economy recovered in the third quarter, boosted by higher production of horticulture and animal products.

In a country where it’s common to find apples from South Africa, potatoes from India and carrots from Australia — all marked at a price to cover the import costs — in supermarkets, some farming initiatives in recent years are bringing to reality a new breed of green agriculture that seeks to produce more crops in less space and water, and is efficient, easier and kinder on the natural environment.

Agriculture – including crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and forestry – absorbs around 26 percent of the total damage and losses of climate-related natural disasters, such as droughts and floods, in the developing world.

Soils support life. And without soils, many of the world’s living organisms will find it difficult to survive and thrive. Besides forests and grasslands, this includes economically important plants like rice, which feeds more than half of the world’s population.

SA’s recent agricultural GDP figures, which show that the sector escaped the recession in the third quarter, expanding 6.5% on a quarter-on-quarter (seasonally-adjusted annualised) basis, are no call for celebration.

In any process of change there will be forces that push change in radical and truly transformative directions, and there will be forces that do change things but are in fact regressive, and inadvertently or covertly reaffirm current patterns and processes.

According to experts, the drone is the most inexpensive method for fields smaller than 50 hectares. A drone can also detect problems early. The details, delivered by data, are accurate to a centimetre.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050, and to feed that number of people, global food production will need to grow by 70%. For Africa, which is projected to be home to about 2 billion people by then, farm productivity must accelerate at a faster rate than the global average to avoid continued mass hunger.

From the invention of hoes, scythes and ploughs to the introduction of tractors, innovation is at the heart of agriculture. Today, a number of digital technologies — from autonomous robots that pick fruit to subterranean farms — are helping transform the industry.

Minette Batters, a beef farmer from Wiltshire in southern England, is becoming the public face of farming in much of Britain.

"The country's political and economic realities hold various serious threats and a very uncertain outlook for 2019 as far as the ANC government's political and economic policy is concerned.

Agriculture and climate change are deeply intertwined. The effects of global warming on food supply are dire, whilst world population is increasing. It's time to change the way agriculture affects the environment, and vice versa.