Western Cape farmers ride uneven recovery as tariffs, disease and weather bite

We spent time last week engaging with agribusinesses and farmers in the Western Cape. The primary agricultural focus of the province is various fruits, citrus, table grapes, wine, wheat, barley, livestock and aquaculture, among many value chains.

Challenges for various agri sectors

Each of these commodities faces its own challenges and exciting developments. For wheat, for example, the 2025-26 season was challenging, with higher input costs and lower wheat prices; so farmers have been calling for an increase in the wheat import tariff. The industry’s profitability is under pressure.

When it comes to table grapes, port inefficiencies proved costly for the industry at the end of 2025 and the start of this year. The citrus industry struggled with US tariff challenges, but is now getting a breather as tariffs have been lowered to 10%.

The wine industry too struggled with higher tariffs in the US and with slow progress in trade negotiations that would help it gain a larger share of exports to China and other Asian markets, supporting growth.

But if we step back from these issues and reflect on a broader sectoral performance, my broad message in the meetings was that Western Cape agriculture is continuing its recovery, though unevenly.

The cattle industry continues to struggle with foot-and-mouth disease. The effectiveness of the vaccination process, which should gain momentum soon, will be the major determinant of whether we see evenly spread growth or recovery in the agricultural sector this year. For now, it appears that the cattle industry will be under financial pressure for some time.

The pig industry is also under financial strain as African swine fever remains a challenge. This hasn’t been discussed much in the news, but various regions of the country struggle with it.

Growth factors

I must stress that when I talk about continuing a recovery, I mean building on the gains of 2025.

On Tuesday, 10 March 10, Statistics South Africa will release the gross domestic product data for the last quarter of 2025. In these data, the gross value figure for agriculture is likely to show some recovery, notwithstanding the challenges I mentioned above in the livestock industry.

Field crops and horticulture are expected to power strong agricultural growth in 2025, while the cattle industry struggled with higher feed costs at the start of the year and the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. It is because of such performance disparities that we termed 2025 an uneven recovery in South Africa’s agriculture.

It was the excellent production conditions in field crops (grains, oilseeds and sugarcane) and horticulture (fruits, wine and vegetables) that boosted South Africa’s agricultural exports to a record $15.1-billion, up 10% from 2024.

These broadly healthy farming fortunes of 2025 also extended to the interlinked industries. For example, South Africa’s tractor sales totalled 7,668 units in 2025, up 19% from 2024, and combine harvester sales totalled 207 units, up 3% from the previous year.

So, where are we today?

Since the start of the current 2025-26 production season, we have continued to receive the excellent La Niña rains, which have supported crop conditions and the grazing veld across the country.

We now have the first production estimate for the 2025/26 summer grains and oilseeds season, at 19.82 million tonnes. While this is 3% less than the 2024/25 season, it remains an encouraging estimate. We must not forget that the 2024/25 summer grains and oilseeds season was the second-largest on record; therefore, being marginally lower is not cause for concern.

The favourable rainfall has also supported production conditions for various fruits, vegetables and grazing veld. So, while we typically highlight grain production, the benefits of excellent rainfall extend beyond that.

The Western Cape will start its winter crop season at the end of April. These crops are mainly wheat, barley, canola and oats. Therefore, for them, the weather outlook remains a primary focus.

I must highlight that we are at the tail end of the 2025-026 La Niña rainfall period. From April 2026 the weather is likely to return to normal, and later to an El Niño. DM

Wandile Sihlobo is the Presidential Envoy on Agriculture and Land. He is also the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, and a senior research fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.