Draft Conservation Agriculture Policy

The Draft Conservation Agriculture Policy has been published in Government Gazette no. 41432 for public comment. "This policy addresses the urgent need to adapt conventional farming systems which are compromising agricultural production and resulting in alarming natural resource degradation. This degradation is threatening food security, basic human rights and ultimately, national security. In addition, a lack of coherence in legislation within the agricultural production and rural development policy environment, is evident. This strengthens the argument for a CA policy.

Furthermore, climate change, scarce water resources, rainfall variability (extremes), food quality and a growing population and food demand, add urgency to the need for a switch to a more sustainable system. Therefore, a publicly coordinated approach to facilitate CA adoption is required. This would deal with the current policy-level confusion on the type of agriculture that would characterize a green economy, in terms of sustainable production intensification, whilst growing South Africa’s natural- and human-capital."