New Zealand’s largest apple grower-exporter T&G Global has begun using a robotic harvester on a commercial apple crop in what it describes as a “world-first”.

Dutch grower Sjaak Huetink is enthusiastic about using the Poulsen Robovator camera operated hoeing machine. “We have never sprayed as little or made as few weeding hours. Our plots have never been cleaner.”

South Africa’s land reform programme was supposed to ensure that the impoverished get to own and work the land. Now, only the politically connected and economically included are benefitting.

Temperature rise due to climate change has negatively affected labor productivity in recent decades and will keep damaging it, potentially to a higher extent than what has been estimated in the literature up to now.

South Africa’s tragically high unemployment has frequently been described as a “ticking time bomb”.

The last few years exposed global supply chain fragility and transformed the way many do business.

We’ve deployed over a hundred autonomous tractors in the marketplace. In nearly every farming operation where we’ve integrated autonomy, I’m seeing trends that may surprise you.

For too long, South Africa’s labour laws have been cripplingly restrictive, discouraging businesses from taking on new employees. The laws were crafted against an ideological background that saw businesses and employers as essentially evil and employees as their hapless victims.