Sales of animals and animal products accounted for the largest portion of income earned in the agricultural industry last year. Picture: Markus Spiske/Pexels
South Africa’s agricultural industry generated R450.2 billion last year, with sales of animals and animal products accounting for the largest portion of this income.
This is an increase of 11.2 percent from the R404.8bn earned in 2021.
Stats SA’s Agricultural Survey 2022 – which covers the activities of commercial farms in the country that are registered for VAT – reveals that large enterprises contributed R310.3bn (69 percent) to this total income; they were followed by small enterprises with R77.4bn (17.2 percent) and then medium and micro enterprises with R35.3bn (7.8 percent) and R27.2bn (6.0 percent) respectively.
“In 2022, ‘animals and animal products’ generated the largest sales (R172.8 billion), followed by ‘horticultural crops and products’ (R109.5 billion) and ‘field crops’ (R95.4 billion),” says statistician-general Risenga Maluleke.
“The highest percentage increases were recorded for income earned from the sale of ‘field crops’ (21.5 percent) and ‘other agricultural products’ (13.4 percent).”
When it comes to expenditure, the total outlay was R424.1bn in 2022, an increase of 11.8 percent from the R379.2m expenditure in 2021. The largest contributor to total expenditure was ‘purchases’ (54.0 percent of the total), followed by ‘salaries and wages’ (12.6 percent), ‘repairs and maintenance’ (4.9 percent) and ‘depreciation’ (4.7 percent).
Total capital expenditure on new assets in the agriculture and related services industry in 2022 amounted to R38.9bn compared with R33.1 billion in 2021. This is an increase of 17.4 percent Maluleke says.
“‘Motor vehicles, plant, machinery, tractors, and other transport’ reported the largest increase, namely R3.6bn (from R20.4bn in 2021 to R24bn in 2022).”
He adds that the total number of people employed in the agriculture and related services industry as at the end of June 2022 was 814,518 compared with 783,745 in June 2021 – an increase of 3.9 percent.
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