The Applied Economics and Member Services team plays a key role to support Grain SA’s vision to influence the macro- and micro-economic environment in order to enable sustainable and profitable local grain production and development. In layman’s terms this entails keeping grain and oilseed producers profitable and sustainable on their farms.
Our team’s purpose is to do economic research and to then apply these economics to help keep grain and oilseed producers profitable and sustainable on their farms and serve Grain SA members by doing this. We serve Grain SA members by promoting the policy environment in the market and input environments to the benefit of grain and oilseed producers; and by influencing the input, production and market environments in order to promote members’ profitability (economic environment).
It is very important that our team is in sync with our members and their needs, as well as the agricultural economic and macro-economic space.
The team currently consists of four agricultural economists and a committee officer, Luzelle Botha, who captures almost all the data that the team uses and takes care of administrative tasks. We also have the privilege of having full access to two other agricultural economists in the organisation, namely Dr Dirk Strydom and Dr Pieter Taljaard (CEO). Furthermore, the team also interlinks with the marketing and research teams, because we cannot function in isolation.
As Grain SA is essentially a commodity organisation, our team is also responsible for administering and serving the different commodity specialist working groups of the organisation. These groups consist of specialists from the Grain SA Executive and in some cases co-opted Grain SA members. The working groups are as follows:
- Maize Specialist Working Group
- Sorghum Specialist Working Group
- Winter Cereal Specialist Working Group
- Canola Specialist Working Group
- Barley Specialist Working Group
- Lupine and Alternative Crop Working Group
- Sunflower & Soybean Specialist Working Group
- Groundnut Specialist Working Group
- Production/Input Working Group
Some of the recent projects that our team has been involved with include the following:
- Transparent market and input information for an effective free market.
- Diesel rebate – SARS audits & new diesel rebate system.
- Grading regulation changes for maize.
- Holding out Leaf Services as a duplication of grading costs.
- Fertiliser quality monitoring.
- Investigating an alternative location differential.
- Export protocol for exportation of soybeans to China.
- Assisting members with dispute resolutions.
