The missing voters: SA’s stark township–suburb turnout gap

And welcome to you. How much will the new levy raise? Who pays it? And where exactly is it going to go? Very valid question. It's approximately what we budgeted for: 50 million rand per annum for the next four years. So it's in total roughly 200 million that will be levied. We have had this levy for the past four years as well. So it's nothing new. It's just an extension of a current levy that we are already running.

So the money will go towards specifically we've got four pillars and I think it's important to understand the four pillars. The first one is animal and public health. So there's certain services that need to be delivered from a biosecurity perspective but also with regards to safety of meat to ensure that we're in a situation where we do look after the meat and ensure that the meat is safe etc. Then we've got a second leg which is market access ensuring that we've got access to international markets but also access for local

And small scale and new entrants to the market that can have access. The third one is inclusive growth. In the normal, it's called transformation. We call it inclusive growth. We say that our entire industry must grow to ensure that we get the small scale and the emerging farmers part of it. And then the last one is sustainability. Competitiveness is sustainability. And it will go towards specific projects looking at that. So biosecurity or animal health is one part of what we need to do.

Now the money will not necessarily go to, let's say, buying vaccine. I mean, vaccine is too expensive and we will not make a, it won't have a real effect if we buy vaccine with us. However, it is for awareness. It is putting up structures to ensure that we've got meetings and discussions and at the end of the day, obviously awareness, as I indicated, towards biosecurity specifically in the South African context. I fully understand how serious an issue foot and mouth has been, but some detractors might ask this question.

Is it fair to impose additional costs on producers when many might argue that protecting animal health is fundamentally the responsibility of government? Well, true. We need to understand that government do not own animals. The animals belong to us as an industry and industry role players. Government is merely an enabler. And we do understand, and we do not disagree as an industry, that government has got a specific role to play with regards to where they stand on animal health.

And specifically, biosecurity. But I mean, we're in a context within the South African scenario whereby I've got private medical aid and it's still government's responsibility to give us good medical assistance and services. But I do not necessarily trust the services, and that's why I've got a medical aid. And same here. We've got a system where we need to look after ourselves, and it isn't necessarily if you take the amount of levy that is levied, it is