Climate shocks are hitting South Africa’s food businesses – study shows what they need to adapt

Climate change discussions in southern Africa often focus on farming, where the effects of environmental shocks are most visible. The debate frequently centres on droughts, floods, declining crop productivity and heat stress affecting livestock systems. This is largely because agriculture is a sector that’s directly exposed to extreme weather events.

But food systems involve far more than agricultural production. Between farms and consumers lies the agri-processing sector. This is made up of businesses that transform raw agricultural commodities into consumable food products through activities such as cleaning, milling, preservation, packaging, storage and manufacturing.

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It connects agricultural production to markets, retailers and households. In South Africa, agri-processing contributes approximately 25% of national manufacturing output and supports more than 300,000 direct jobs.