On the 24^th and 25^th of April 2019, AgriSA held their commodity and corporate conference at Future Africa, Pretoria. The Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development had the opportunity to send five of their top students to attend this event; Hilda Lefophane (PhD), Anelisa Koshe (MSc Agric), Taaibah Miller (MSc Agric), Lunga Khumalo (BCom Agric), and Chikomborero Chiobvu (BCom Agric).

This year, the conference theme was Research for Development. The presentations by local and international experts were aimed at unpacking the difficulties faced by the South African farmer towards identifying solutions and opportunities offered by the industry. With their 9 provincial and 26 commodity organisations, and their 43 corporate members AgriSA is ideally positioned to leverage its trusted relationship to stimulate discussions to address some of these very difficult challenges that the farmers face. “The session on ‘Targeting corporate expenditure for meaningful transformation’ provided us with some useful information on how to actually transform the South African economy when we join the agricultural sector in a few years’ time.”, Taaibah Miller.

Our HoD, Prof Sheryl Hendriks, also offered her expert opinion during a presentation to address South Africa’s food security status. In her presentation she recommended eight focus areas; implement and deliver on the development targets and food security, address the lack of country-specific data in the international domain, get GDP growth on track, realise the impact of urbanisation on the food system, finance farmers and develop value chains, reduce food losses and waste, improve food supply and diet quality, and ensure a stable and sustainable food system.

During the conference workshop, Anelisa learned the value of conducting (industry) problem-driven research and had the opportunity to be part of a group of experts on animal production which served to be valuable to her MSc study in the small stock industry. Similarly, Hilda made valuable connections during the networking sessions that will support the completion of her PhD thesis.

The feedback from our two undergraduates, Chikomborero and Lunga, highlighted the importance of early exposure of students to the agricultural sector. Both students agreed that “at first it was a bit intimidating, but intimidation was quickly replaced by excitement and the will to take advantage of the opportunity we have been blessed with”. Chikomborero was excited to learn of the many research gaps that need filling to help make decisions about which direction to take in the future; “I cannot wait to start my postgraduate studies”. Lunga was excited to rub shoulders with so many influential leaders in the agricultural sector, and the highlight for him was the opportunity to brainstorm with these leaders to start answering some of the most pressing questions the agricultural sector face today.

Following the conference, the students returned more passionate about their careers in the agricultural sector and the role they can play to bring forth change. As a department, we would like to extend our gratitude to AgriSA for their generosity to enable our students to attend such a high profile event, and to rub shoulders with the giants in our agricultural industry.