How Climate Change Impacts Agricultural Communities
South African agriculture remains an essential part of the country’s economy and the livelihoods of thousands of people. While the sector continues to feed millions and provide employment for a significant portion of the population, the industry has faced challenges from climate change. The impacts are not just on the environment, but also on the…
Rethinking Waste Management in Rural South Africa
Effective waste management presents a valuable opportunity for agricultural producers to enhance sustainability directly on site. By recycling organic waste, such as orchard and vineyard residues, through composting, producers can create nutrient-rich products that reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers. At the same time, the SIZA Environmental Standard encourages the use of reduced and reused practices…
FAQs - Environmental Compliance, Biodiversity, and Data Transparency in Agriculture
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Q: How can buyers verify the risk of a supplier’s status if they have a SIZA audit? A: The MySIZA platform provides comprehensive risk reports and detailed information on audit outcomes. Buyers can register on the SIZA platform to gain access and visibility into audit results and status updates directly online.…
Integrated Farm Management: When the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Integrated Farm Management (IFM) is a holistic approach to agriculture that boosts productivity, enhances environmental sustainability, and supports social wellbeing. By viewing the farm as an interconnected system, IFM helps optimise resources, reduce input dependency, and improve resilience. The SIZA Environmental Standard—together with the LEAF bolt-on audit—actively supports IFM principles, offering farmers a streamlined, cost-effective way to meet global market expectations and sustainability goals.
Data-driven farming: Putting the "value" in the agricultural value chain.
Despite the promise of data, the Global and South African agricultural sectors face an industry-wide challenge of data fragmentation. At this industry scale, data value is subject to six dimensions of data quality: timeliness, accuracy, consistency, completeness, uniqueness, and granularity. Suppliers often use multiple recordkeeping platforms, each with different standards and metrics. With multiple recordkeeping…
What do we need to know when it comes to auditing Soil Practices?
One of the main focuses of sustainability is to preserve key resources. Agriculture faces various challenges related to soil degradation through overplanting, overgrazing, clearing of natural vegetation to ensure that more agricultural development can occur, and much more. The SIZA Environmental Standard highlights soil as a key element and resource to the supplier and the agricultural environment in which they operate. Certain human activities can cause negative impacts on the environment, and one of those impacts a supplier can have is soil erosion. Soil erosion can be defined as the topsoil, the top layer of soil that is the most fertile, getting carried away by natural or human activities and causing environmental harm.
When Remote areas propose challenges to Waste Management
Waste management in line with good practices and legislation is necessary and a crucial part of any business in agriculture because the irresponsible disposal and management of waste can harm the environment. The Waste Management plan of the supplier, which includes the methods of waste management for the specific waste streams identified, should be done in accordance with and consideration of the locality and availability of services for the production or processing site. The waste management hierarchy should be followed as far as reasonably practicable when deciding what waste management methods are to be adopted.
What are the Pest Control Operator regulations, and why are they important?
South African agriculture is undergoing significant regulatory changes concerning the use of agricultural remedies, particularly those classified as “restricted agricultural remedies”. These changes underscore the crucial role of the registered Pest Control Operator (PCO) in ensuring the safe and responsible management of pests while safeguarding human health and the environment. A PCO is defined by the Pest Control Operator Regulations 2011 under the Fertilizer, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act No. 36 of 1947. For many years, these regulations were not enforced due to the lack of definitions for “restricted agricultural remedies”. This changed in 2023 when the “Regulations relating to agricultural remedies” were published, defining a new class of restricted remedies which apply to PCOs.
