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26 September 2019 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Supplied
Kovsies Women Cross-Country Team Marné Mentz, Vicky Oelofse, and Channah du Plessis
Marné Mentz, Ts’epang Sello, and Tyler Beling played a huge role in Kovsies' cross-country champions win.

After coming within a whisker of claiming the title in 2018, the University of the Free State’s (UFS) runners ensured that the University Sports South Africa (USSA) cross-country trophy comes to Bloemfontein in 2019.

Kovsies are the new national student cross-country champions after they (men and women combined) won the USSA Championships in Nelspruit on Saturday, 21 September. Kovsies and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) both finished with three gold medals at the same event in 2018. UJ finished with nine overall medals compared to the eight (three gold, two silver, and three silver) of the UFS, who had to settle for second place. In 2017, the UFS finished third.

The Kovsie women’s team played a huge role in carrying the team to the top of the medal table, winning four golds. They won the 4 km and 10 km women’s team competitions as well as the road relay. The top three places by the runners of a university determined the team winner.

Marné Mentz UFS Cross-Country

Marné Mentz’s gold medal in the four-kilometre race at the
USSA Cross Country Championships helped the Kovsies
win the overall title.

Marné Mentz (first), Vicky Oelofse (fifth), and Channah du Plessis (sixth) dominated the four-kilometre race. In the 10 km, Ts’epang Sello (third), Tyler Beling (sixth), and Lizandré Mulder (seventh) did enough to ensure another gold for the Free State students. Mentz, Sello, and Beling jointly took first place in the road relay.

In the 10-km race for men, Kovsies came fifth, with Victor Makhabesela the best performer (finishing ninth). Pakiso Mthembu, one of the contenders for the medal who won the silver medal at the National Cross Country Championships two weeks before, had to withdraw after 7 km in the race due to an injury.

News Archive

Producers to save thousands with routine marketing strategies, says UFS researcher
2014-09-01

 

Photo: en.wikipedia.org

Using derivative markets as a marketing strategy can be complicated for farmers. The producers tend to use high risk strategies which include the selling of the crop on the cash market after harvest; whilst the high market risks require innovative strategies including the use of futures and options as traded on the South African Futures Exchange (SAFEX).

Using these innovative strategies are mostly due to a lack of interest and knowledge of the market. The purpose of the research conducted by Dr Dirk Strydom and Manfred Venter from the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of the Free State (UFS) is to examine whether the adoption of a basic routine strategy is better than adopting no strategy at all.

The research illustrates that by using a Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) and Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) that the use of five basic routine marketing strategies can be more rewarding. These basic strategies are:
• Put (plant time)
• Twelve-segment pricing
• Three-segment pricing
• Put (pollination)(Critical Moment in production/marketing process), and
• Pricing during pollination phase.

These strategies can be adopted by farmers without an in-depth understanding of the market and market-signals. Farmers can save as much as R1.6 million per year on a 2000ha farm with an average yield.

The results obtained from the research illustrate that each strategy is different for each crop. Very important is that the hedging strategies are better than no hedging strategy at all.

This research can also be applicable to the procurement side of the supply chain.

Maize milling firms use complex procurement strategies to procure their raw materials, or sometimes no strategy at all. In this research, basic routine price hedging strategies were analysed as part of the procurement of white maize over a ten-year period ranging from 2002–2012. Part of the pricing strategies used to procure white maize over the period of ten years were a call and min/max strategy. These strategies were compared to the baseline spot market. The data was obtained from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s Agricultural Products Division better known as SAFEX.

The results obtained from the research prove that by using basic routine price-hedging strategies to procure white maize, it is more beneficial to do so than by procuring from the spot market (a difference of more than R100 mil).

Thus, it can be concluded that it is not always necessary to use a complex method of sourcing white maize through SAFEX, to be efficient. By implementing a basic routine price hedging strategy year on year it can be better than procuring from the spot market.

Understanding the Maize Maze by Dr Dirk Strydom and Manfred Venter (pdf) - The Dairy Mail


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