Dylan Bettencourt
One of South Africa’s biggest passion fruit farms is moving its operations to Ghana due to financial losses from Transnet’s poor port management.
The farm in Mpumalanga, Roslesia Farming, has 200 hectares of granadilla orchards.
Shareholder in the farm Charles Rossouw told Farmers Weekly the land where the fruit grew will be changed into a macadamia farm as the nut was less susceptible to poor port operations.
Rossouw explained that the poor port operations led to the fruit being spoiled due to shipment delays and faulty cooling systems. As a consequence, the farm lost millions of rands last year.
The company turned to Ghana as a country for its operations because of its climate as well as its proximity to Europe.
The Tema and Takoradi seaports have 80% of the country’s trade operations going through it as they were both recently upgraded.
The upgrades were aimed to improve and expand operations at the ports.
The Tema port that was ranked the largest in West and Central Africa in 2020 received a share of a R15 billion rand investment to upgrade.
The granadilla farm is not the only fruit farm in South Africa that has suffered from poor port operations.
Last year the citrus industry took a hit following a number of cyber attacks on Transnet, who are responsible for rail, port and pipeline trade.
The attack affected container terminals at major ports in Durban, Ngqura, Gqeberha and Cape Town.
The export and logistical constraints forced the price of citrus to decrease, causing an oversupply of the fruit.
Image source: @BusinessInsider
