Business Day reports that wine producers’ body VinPro says that the wine industry has the potential to create 100,000 new jobs over the next decade, provided it remains stable. The number of people employed directly or indirectly in the wine industry has increased to slightly more than 275,000, from fewer than 160,000 in 2000, and now represents 1.5% of the workforce in the economy. But the industry has been rocked by a wave of labour unrest in recent years and faces uncertainty because of government’s land reform. Speaking on Thursday at a conference organised by VinPro and Nedbank to look at the unique challenges facing the wine industry, VinPro CEO Rico Basson said there needed to be a social contract in the wine industry, which included the industry, labour and government. He indicated that local producers were at present not making enough money, which discouraged them from planting new vines. Western Cape economic opportunities MEC Alan Winde told the conference that land reform and labour unrest were the biggest risks facing the industry and the broader agricultural sector. He called for land reform to be speeded up as it created uncertainty in the agricultural sector. Land reform proposals put forward by Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti last year would see long-term farm workers being given a 50% equity share of the farms on which they worked.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:47:45 +0000
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