For the second year running, official statistics on the extent of South Africa’s agricultural decline have been challenged by the independent research organisation the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP).
The result is that the BFAP and other agricultural organisations will join the Department of Agriculture in a committee that will regularly assess the state of agriculture in South Africa and release insights on their discussions.
Last year, the BFAP took issue with a StatsSA report that the agricultural sector contracted by 12.2% in the final quarter of 2023. Its own calculation put the decline at a far more modest 2% to 5%.
In a “Perspectives” publication, the BFPA disputed StatsSA’s calculations, particularly on farm inputs which had declined while StatsSA said they had gone up.
The dispute this year concerns the StatsSA calculation that agricultural performance decreased by 28.8% in the third quarter of 2024.
This led two agricultural bodies, Agri SA and Agbiz, to ask BFAP to review the StatsSA data.
A joint statement by the three organisations said the BFAP analysis indicates that the decline in real agricultural GDP for the first three quarters of last year “should be between 5-6%, as opposed to the current official decline of 15.5%”. BFAP expected the decline for 2024 as a whole to be 4.8% after some growth in the final quarter.
“These results have been shared with the Department of Agriculture, which will engage officially with Statistics South Africa,” the statement said.
More details of the new agricultural conditions assessment committee are expected later this month.
