Agronomy crops had been subject to a challenging 2003 season in comparison with the previous period reviewed.  Factors such as drought in both the summer and winter rainfall regions, low commodity prices owing to the appreciation of the Rand against the Dollar, as well as high levels of carry over stock and limited credit facilities available for input costs, complicated the business environment significantly.  The situation fortunately changed during the latter part of the period under review and SANSOR can look forward to a new season with excitement, enthusiasm and high expectations. The SANSOR Agronomy Division had to address various issues with major impacts on the future of seed businesses in this division.  The publishing of a list of undesired white maize cultivars remained a controversial issue during 2003 and further discussions with the National Association of Maize Millers (NAMM) resulted in a better understanding of the two industries and the relevant timeframes necessary prior to publishing a list without major losses to seed companies.

Mr JM (Kobus) Lindeque Chairman: Agronomy Division

 SANSOR also expressed its reservations on the correlation of results between the experimental mill and the industrial mills, as well as raised a concern on the quality of imported grain and the regulation thereof.  On the other hand the millers expressed their concern on the size of maize grain and threatened to increase the size for undesirable small- sized kernels.  This would have a significant impact on seed business, as the new genetics produce smaller grain with higher quality.  This matter was also discussed with Grain South Africa as the relevant producers’ organization and a request was made that such matters needed to be handled with responsibility and only serious cases of bad quality justified the removal of varieties from the industry.

A major breakthrough came with the acceptance of the principle by seed companies to provide certain seed sale statistics to the benefit of the seed industry, its clients, as well as other stakeholders in agriculture and trade & industry. This had been an extremely sensitive issue for many years and certain seed companies refused to provide this kind of information.  Although the principle had been accepted, the differentiation of information and implementation would only be formalized during the next interim.

The annual meeting with the Grain South Africa Input suppliers Working Group led to the discussion of several industry issues of mutual concern.  These included, amongst others, seed prices, seed size and seed lot homogeneity.  The handling of complaints was also discussed and the protocol according to which the farmer first had to contact the seed agent for preliminary investigation and problem solving was re-affirmed.  If this was not to the satisfaction of the farmer, SANSOR could be used for arbitration.  The issue on genetically modified organisms had been once again deliberated extensively during the period under review with special reference to the system being developed by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) on Identity Preservation.  Further developments during the period under review included special measures to curb the spread of Karnal Bunt in South Africa.

An important issue, which had been resolved during the period under review, was a dispute among seed companies on the use of duplicate names and/or numbers for varieties belonging to different companies.

An urgent recommendation for the next interim was the proposal to establish a standing committee that would be responsible for the implementation of an Insect Resistant Management (IRM) program in insect resistant genetically modified crops. This matter had been referred to the SANSOR General Assembly for decision.

In conclusion, it was evident that the Agronomy Division had several issues to address.  The Chairman would like to thank and congratulate all the committee members in this division for their time and effort during meetings over the past year to address all the above-mentioned issues. 

Table 1 reflects the updated market statistics for the year 2003 of the most important agronomy crops under the auspices of the SANSOR Agronomy Division.