The South African citrus trade has welcomed authorities’s determination to open Transnet’s rail community to personal operators, seeing it as a possible game-changer for agricultural logistics.
Picture: FW Archive
In late August, Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy introduced that 11 non-public firms had met the required necessities and would proceed to the subsequent stage of negotiations and contracting and could be allotted 41 rail routes throughout six key corridors for one to 10 years.
READ Freight rail revival on the playing cards for Overberg agri hall
Personal operators to enter Transnet rail community
The rail reform initiative follows the Nationwide Rail Coverage permitted by Cupboard in March 2022, which, for the primary time in Transnet’s historical past, permits for private-sector participation whereas preserving infrastructure beneath state possession.
Creecy stated the Transnet Rail Infrastructure Supervisor estimated that the brand new practice working firms would carry an extra 20 million tons of freight each year from the 2026/27 monetary 12 months.
“The participation of personal operators will go a good distance in growing Transnet rail volumes and help producers within the mining and agriculture sector [with meeting] rail cargo quantity expectations [for] exporters, and encourage the improve of the rail infrastructure,” she stated throughout a media briefing.
READ How an SA producer grows 70 000t of citrus a 12 months
“This may complement Transnet Freight Rail’s forecast volumes and contribute to authorities’s goal of accelerating freight moved by rail to 250 million tons each year by 2029.”
Citrus growers rely the price of delays
For the citrus trade, these developments come at a vital time, in line with Citrus Growers’ Affiliation of Southern Africa (CGA) CEO Boitshoko Ntshabele.
Chatting with Farmer’s Weekly, he stated the CGA had been vocal in regards to the influence of transport inefficiencies on the trade.
“In February this 12 months, the CGA launched a [Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy] report on the influence of logistics inefficiencies on our trade. The entire direct and oblique price of those inefficiencies was estimated at R5,3 billion each year – cash that might have gone into the financial system, created jobs, and offered a great return for our growers. The speedy concern for our growers, nonetheless, is getting export fruit to ports from the place it’s shipped,” Ntshabele stated.
Mitchell Brooke, logistics improvement supervisor on the CGA, highlighted the distances concerned in transferring fruit from farm to port.
“Forty % of South Africa’s export citrus is grown in Limpopo. As soon as harvested, the produce should journey about 850km to Durban earlier than it’s shipped. Improved native rail networks can help drastically on this regard,” he defined.
READ Mounting water stress requires extra dam infrastructure
Personal partnerships seen as the best way ahead
Ntshabele expressed assist for initiatives trialling citrus transport by rail: “In one in all [the CGA’s] newsletters, we reported on rail transportation of citrus from Metropolis Deep in Johannesburg right down to the Durban port. We’re eager on the expansion of any of a majority of these initiatives over the subsequent few years.
“With our personal projected will increase in manufacturing volumes, the easing of transportation to market locations at minimal price to our growers is a precedence.”
He added that private-sector partnerships offered the answer to making sure smoother logistics that may facilitate development and job creation within the citrus trade.
