You are invited to attend a workshop on Transforming Agricultural Markets that is co-hosted by National Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry and the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED).
Description
There have been a number of major cartel cases in the agro-processing sector. As a result, substantial penalties have been imposed on firms. However, as with the economy as a whole, the agro-processing sector remains very concentrated and there has been little progress in terms of the entry of black-owned businesses, in particular.
CCRED and Treasury’s research on barriers to entry in the agro-processing sector focused on three subsectors (poultry, milling, and fresh milk) to understand the challenges to entry and rivalry that remain. Many of the challenges relate to the fact that food processing is part of a value chain. This means that a new food processing entrant will only be successful if they can establish backward linkages with input suppliers and forward linkages with retailers to get their products to consumers. Many parts of these agricultural value chains are dominated by lead firms with a long history of incumbency that makes it difficult for new entrants to access the required inputs, reach sufficient scale, and establish routes to market. Where there has been entry, this has been driven primarily by firms with access to key infrastructure as a result of previous state support (e.g. silos), such as erstwhile agricultural co-operatives.
This public workshop explores the role of competition policy and other policies in opening up agricultural value chains to competition. It evaluates the mode of entry by new firms into the poultry, dairy, and milling value chains to present insights on what is required to facilitate entry and encourage competition in the agro-processing sector.
Date: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Time: 13h00- 15h00
Venue: The DTI Campus, 77 Meintjies Street, Sunnyside, Pretoria Block G, Boardroom DG 16.
RSVP: Nelly Molefe Nelly.Molefe@treasury.gov.za by Friday, 16 September 2016
We look forward to your participation.