PROFILE South African
PROFILE South African Table Grape Industry South Africa: preferred country of origin for the world’s best-tasting grapes. SATI represents growers in key government and industry initiatives aimed at creating more opportunities, from ownership to accessing new markets in a sustainable way. SATI assists growers with crucial industry information, transformation, statistics, research, technology and technical transfer as well as training and education with the aim of establishing South Africa as the Preferred Country of Origin for the world’s best- tasting grapes. There are five major table grape growing regions in South Africa. The difference in soil and climate enables growers to supply the markets from November to May. The early season is dominated by varieties from the Northern Provinces and the valleys of the Orange and Olifants River. The Northern Cape has one of the biggest table grape growing regions, known as the Orange River region, represented by the Orange River Producer Alliance (ORPA), chaired by Willie du Plessis. This table grape region, with about 5400 hectares of vines planted, stretches from Upington to Kakamas, Augrabies and Blouputs. The table grape industry is a key industry in the Northern Province, contributing to direct employment of 1 957 permanent and 21 243 seasonal jobs. Several downstream industries are also supported. The harvesting of table grapes in this region takes place from about early November until early February. Mission SATI delivers service excellence to create a progressive, equitable and sustainable industry. Vision South Africa is the Preferred Country of Origin for table grapes and will provide every table grape producer as wide a choice as possible with profitable markets. SATI’s key areas of intervention • Technical market access • Research and technology transfer • Information and knowledge management • Transformation • Communication and stakeholder engagement • Human capacity and skills development • Technical support These interventions are aimed at assisting producers to Gain, Retain and Optimise (GRO) market access. CONTACT INFO PHOTO COURTESY OF CLAYTON SWART Manager: Communications: Clayton Swart Email: clayton@satgi.co.za Chairperson ORPA: Willie du Plessis Email: willie@omdraai.co.za Physical address: 63 Main Street, Paarl 7624 Tel: +27 21 863 0366 | Fax: +27 21 863 3039 Email: info@satgi.co.za Website: www.satgi.co.za NORTHERN CAPE BUSINESS 2017/18 50
