Wandile Sihlobo on Transforming South African Agriculture without Destroying It

Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University, and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since 2019, he has been a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council. He writes a regular column for Business Day.

Sihlobo’s new book, A Country of Two Agricultures, explains how South African farming remains divided between a subsistence segment that is largely black and a well-resourced commercial sector that is primarily white-owned. Efforts to address this duality sometimes seem to threaten both farms’ commercial viability and the country’s food security.

Wandile will speak to the Cape Town Press Club about whether, and how, we can transform South African agriculture without destroying it.

He will take questions.

Photo/s: Farming Portal