On 26 April 2024 the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment published proposed Sectoral Emissions Targets (SET) Report (2025-2030) for public comment.
The Draft SET Report specifically includes the requirement for the agricultural sector to meet certain emissions targets (provisionally 3.4 MtCO2eq) in accordance with South Africa’s Nationally Determined Contribution as created in terms of the Paris Agreement under the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change. (SETs are also set for the manufacturing industry, mining, energy, human settlements, transport and forestry.)
The report specifically tasks the Department of Agriculture with achieving certain targets within the prescribed timeframe (2025-2030) through the application of certain policies and measures. This will include the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act (soon to be signed in to effect), the Climate Smart Strategic Framework, the Conservation Agriculture Strategy, the Agricultural Climate Change Sector Plan and the Agricultural Sector Implementation Plan.
It is vital that such policies and measures consider and accommodate the views of the private sector component of the food production value chain in order to properly contextualize and ensure the achievability of the proposed SETs.
Foremost in this regard should be the socio-economic dimension aligning South Africa’s ambitious international climate commitments with local realities, including maintaining and expanding its established commercial agricultural base while at the same time incentivising and upscaling small and subsistence farmers.
Creating realistic and achievable SETs for the agricultural sector will not be easy. Doing so, however, also holds enormous promise for unlocking the social, economic and environmental potential of our sector while at the same time bringing us closer to one another.
