Minister Senzeni Zokwana launched the Producer Farmer Register, or PFR, this week, through which information of non-commercial farmers will be collected by the department itself. Stats SA will assist the department. He said information of commercial farmers will be collected through a Census of Commercial Agriculture (COC) by Stats SA. Zokwana said the PFR will run from this year to 2021, and will improve the inaccurate and misrepresented statistics of non-commercial farmers in South Africa. The department's extension officers will then have quantified information about the number of farmers in a certain commodity and where they are situated.

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Early November marked the optimal planting window for sunflower farmers to plant their sunflower seeds. This is accordin gto Agbiz Agricultural Economist, Wandile Sihlobo, who said in a release thatdespite it being a good time to start planting, it is still a fairly quiet period on the fields, as expected rainfall has not yet materialised in most areas. Sihlobo said farmers should not be too worried about this, as the optimal planting window will remain open until early January 2019. 

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