Don’t forget those closest to you when spreading your wings. This is the advice from the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz), which emphasises the crucial role of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) in driving South A f r ica’s agricultural exports.Trade relations between South Africa and its neighbours have seen some friction in recent years. In December last year, Botswana finally removed a trade ban on the import of vegetables from South Africa, which it had instituted in 2021. The Namibian ban, which started around the same time as Botswana, remains in place. But in January Botswana instituted a new ban, this time on grains, including maize, sorghum and wheat.According to Agbiz chief economist Wandile Sihlobo, the reason for this was the detection of the Goss’s wilt in a few maize-growing regions of the Free State, North West, Gauteng and Eastern Cape. He said Botswana had banned imports of a wide range of products, although research showed that the risk was mainly in maize seeds for planting.He said while the ban had been lifted at the end of January, it did raise the question of why Sacu was not cooperating better. What made matters worse is that Namibia again followed Botswana’s decision and grain imports remain banned for this country after they added the products to their vegetable ban.“Botswana and Namibia’s trade policy approach has weighed negatively on South Africa’s agricultural exports. Putting everything aside and reviewing purely from an agricultural trade, the Sacu region is vital to South Africa. According to our calculations, using data from Trade Map, the region accounted for about 20% of South Africa’s agricultural exports of $13.2 billion in 2023. This equals the same value as South Africa’s agricultural exports to the EU. The only difference between the EU and Sacu is the products in the export basket. The EU tends to import more fruits and wines, while the Sacu basket is heavy on grains and beverages,” said Sihlobo, highlighting that the most logical step should be to preserve trade and reduce the frequent occurrence of export bans targeting South Africa.He said while the Sacu market did not represent much growth for South Africa beyond what currently exists, current exports remained vital. “Diversifying export markets to other regions to ease risk in the future is key, but it should be viewed as part of the long-term market development and not a replacement of the market currently existing in the Sacu,” he said.
