Grain SA’s annual and largest agricultural exhibitions in the southern hemisphere, NAMPO Harvest Day, has resumed this year after a two-year break forced mainly by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Record number of attendance
According to the organisers, for the first time in the history of the event, the exhibition was held over five day 16-20 May. Chief executive officer of Grain South Africa, Pieter Taljaard said the largest number of visitors who attended the event is a clear sign of the resilience of the South African value chain. On the first day of the exhibition around 13 000 visitors had pre-booked for the event and it is believed the number has increased substantially at the end of the event confirming the growing popularity of the exhibition.
Vital agricultural event
NAMPO is considered a critical and unique platform for the farmers to network with the agricultural industry’s top stakeholders, strengthen friendships and relationships, said Taljaard. It is also an event where the best and latest hi-tech equipment is displayed, knowledge, new products and services are shared with the farming fraternity. Said Taljaard: “This year’s exhibits [were] characterised by a much greater variety of products, as well as a larger number of implements and machinery than in previous years. It shows that both buyers and sellers are hungry for business, which underpins the optimism of the local agricultural industry.”
Ideal opportunity for dialogue
Chairman of the NAMPO Harvest Day, Danie Minnaar said farmers also use the exhibition to share new ideas on how they can farm sustainably and in environmentally friendly ways. NAMPO does not only present an opportunity for conversation and dialogue, said Minnaar, but it also allows the public and other role players to experience commercial agriculture and food safety and security in action.
Added Taljaard: “To host government representatives and stakeholders from the agricultural value chain provide opportunity for important and sometimes challenging conversations to take place, in an environment conducive to and aimed at promoting the sector locally and throughout the sub-Saharan region.”
High profile guests
One of the highlights of the 2022 NAMPO Agricultural Trade Show was a number of overseas and high profile dignitaries. Among them was the agriculture minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Joseph Aerts. He was accompanied by the minister of rural development in that country’s Katanga province, Hemoch se ya Lwembe.
Aerts said their visit to NAMPO aims to engage with grain seed suppliers in order to increase the availability and production of commercial seed in the country. Said Aerts: “We are also here to meet with the suppliers and producers of agricultural equipment and machinery, and the possibility of them expanding their businesses to our country as well.” In addition, Aerts said the DRC also needs to explore public-private partnership with interested commercial grain producers who will also act as mentors to the local farming communities.
Promoting agriculture as backbone of economy
He said DRC imports most of its food with South Africa and Namibia being major exporters of maize while other foodstuffs come from Zambia and Tanzania. Aerts said mining forms the backbone of the Katanga economy but that they need to diversify their economy by pushing up agricultural production, sustainability and profitability as the main economic activity in the province. “That is why it is imperative for us to meet with leaders in the agricultural value chain and Nampo is the ideal platform to do so,” said Aerts.
