The Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development had a “good harvest” at the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa’s annual conference held in Durban between 19 and 21 September 2017. Not only was more than a third of the accepted oral papers contributed by UP staff and students, but the Pretoria team also walked away with numerous prizes.

The first and second prize for best-contributed papers were won by members of the lecturing corps of the department. Dr Danie Jordaan won first prize for his paper entitled “Measuring the fragility of agribusiness value chains: A case study of the South African lamb chain”, whilst Dr Melissa van der Merwe won second prize for her paper “Investing in collective reputation: Sheep farmers, geographic indicators and collective action in the Karoo, South Africa”. 

Other UP achievements related to the conference include the best paper submitted to the conference by a PhD student, won by Colleta Gandidzanwa and best-published article in the Agrekon journal. The latter was on demand elasticities in the South African meat industry and was published by Delport, Louw, Davids, Vermeulen and Meyer in Agrekon 56(1) in their capacity as researchers in the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP). Tracy Davids, in turn, also won second prize for best published article on her work relating to the competitiveness of the South African broiler industry. The award for best poster presentation went to the UP team, funded by the Agricultural Research Council, for data rescue work in memory of the late Dr. Frikkie Liebenberg, who pioneered this work.

In addition Prof Sheryl Hendriks was acknowledged during the Association's annual general meeting for making a significant contribution to the impact factor of the Association's journal with her authored and co-authored papers contributing 55% of the impact factor citations for Agrekon in 2016.

During the same meeting Prof Ferdi Meyer was also elected as the Association's new vice president.

The department is proud that their hard work is bearing fruit and that students and staff members alike are ensuring that Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria are synonymous with excellence!