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UFS and ARC establish research chairs to address climate change

12 July 2024 | Story André Damons | Photo André Damons

Research Chairs 2024 — Prof Paul Oberholster, Dean: NAS; Dr Glen Taylor, Senior Director for the Directorate Research Development (DRD); Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Internationalisation; and Prof Johan van Niekerk, Vice-Dean for Agriculture in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (NAS); are excited for the new ARC-DALLRD-UFS research chairs.

In a concerted effort to address the challenges and impact of climate change in Southern Africa, the University of the Free State (UFS) together with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) established four new research chairs within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (NAS).

The ARC-DALLRD-UFS research chairs, namely Climate Change and Agriculture, Innovative Agro-processing for Climate-smart Food System, Agriculture Risk Financing and Sustainable Livestock Production, falls under the umbrella of climate change and are part of the established centre of excellence of the ARC and DALRRD on Climate Smart Agriculture.

They will form part of two centres of excellence that the university is also in the process of establishing. The framework for these Agriculture Research Centres of Excellence involves several key components aimed at fostering innovation, collaboration, and impactful research in agriculture. In this case it is Climate Smart Agriculture, enabling them to play a pivotal role in advancing agriculture, enhancing productivity, sustainability, and resilience in the face of global challenges related to climate change.

Prof Johan van Niekerk, Vice-Dean for Agriculture for NAS, and Prof Sonja Venter, from the ARC, are the coordinators for the ARC-UFS-consortium. Joel Mamabolo from the DALRRD is the department’s representative and DALRRD manager in the consortium.

The purpose of the research chairs, he explains, is to conduct high-level research with an aspect of community impact as envisaged in the university’s vision 130. This is the UFS and NAS’s first steps towards creating industry chairs with negotiations between the UFS and the ARC-DALRRD currently taking place for further expansion of the chairs.

Improve research and food security

“The UFS has a long-standing relationship with the ARC and the parties came together to work together to improve research and food security in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The best way to do this, was by creating research chairs. The ARC saw the university’s expertise in agriculture which also contributed to the ARC establishing the chairs. Our expertise is of such a nature that it does not only influence the sector, but also makes a lasting difference,” says Prof Van Niekerk.

According to him, the ARC and the UFS will collectively manage the research chairs by appointing co-chair principal scientists for each of the chairs in order for the chairs to work together and share resources and expertise. The ARC-DALLRD-UFS research chairs will also work closely together within multidisciplinary research teams and complement each other and in doing so, create a value chain within the agriculture sector.

It will integrate various disciplines including agronomy, genetics, soil science, ecology, pathology economics, socioeconomics horticulture, animal sciences, food sciences and engineering to mention a few. This multidisciplinary approach will foster comprehensive research solutions and innovation at the intersection of different fields and will aim to contribute to sustainable food systems for the future.

The first two chairs; Climate Change and Agriculture, headed by Prof Linus Franke, Head of the UFS Department of Soil, Crop, and Climate Sciences, and the Innovative Agro-processing for Climate-smart Food System, which will be under Dr Alba du Toit, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development, officially started on 1 July 2024, while the remaining two chairs will begin operating in December. The ARC will soon confirm the co-leaders of the various chairs.

The Agriculture Risk Financing research chair will be shared between the Department of Agricultural Economics, within NAS, and the UFS Business School. The Sustainable Livestock Production chair will fall within Prof Frikkie Neser’s Department of Animal Science. To add more credibility, experience and expertise to the ARC-DALLRD-UFS research chairs, Prof Maryke Labuschagne, who is leading the NRF SARChI Chair in Diseases and Quality of Field Crops, has been appointed as mentor.

Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Internationalisation, says: “These chairs mark an exciting opportunity to deepen our understanding of climate change aligned to our expertise in agriculture. The chairs offer us the opportunity to honour and support the leaders who will contribute in powerful ways to the vibrant intellectual life of the faculty, as well as the university, the ARC and DALRRD.

“The chairs also honour the donor whose financial support makes this form of recognition possible. At the UFS we are committed to engaging in global challenges but with a deliberate local focus, energy and drive. I am especially excited that these chairs demonstrate a commitment to the UFS focus on partnerships with industry, communities, the state and other academic and research institutions both nationally and around the world.”

Grateful for the ARC relationship

Through these chairs more collaborators and partners from other universities in the country and globally will be included in the partnership with the aim to bring together internationally renowned scientific experts that will collectively focus to address global challenges and enhance the development of more scientific capacity for the country.

The university, Prof Van Niekerk continues, is grateful for the cooperation and relationship with the ARC and its President and CEO, Dr Litha Magingxa and the executive management team, as well as the DALRRD DG, Mooketsa Ramasodi and the DDG for Agricultural Production, Biosecurity and Natural Resources Management, Dipepeneneng Serage for creating an environment within which the Universities and ARC can collectively contribute towards developing solutions with the DALRRD for key agricultural challenges of the country.

He expressed his gratitude to the Directorate Research Development (DRD) under the leadership of Dr Glen Taylor, for not only their support, but for bringing the parties together and negotiating with the ARC on their behalf. In this regard he wishes to thank Dr Petronella Chaminuka from the ARC as the acting Executive Manager: Research support and coordination for her support, guidance and leadership during the process.

Prof Van Niekerk also thanked Profs Francis Petersen, UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Reddy, and Paul Oberholster, Dean of the Faculty of NAS, for creating the environment and rendering immense support for this programme from the UFS.

News Archive

The failure of the law

2004-06-04

Written by Lacea Loader

- Call for the protection of consumers’ and tax payers rights against corporate companies

An expert in commercial law has called for reforms to the Companies Act to protect the rights of consumers and investors.

“Consumers and tax payers are lulled into thinking the law protects them when it definitely does not,” said Prof Dines Gihwala this week during his inaugural lecture at the University of the Free State’s (UFS).

Prof Gihwala, vice-chairperson of the UFS Council, was inaugurated as extraordinary professor in commercial law at the UFS’s Faculty of Law.

He said that consumers, tax payers and shareholders think they can look to the law for an effective curb on the enormous power for ill that big business wields.

“Once the public is involved, the activities of big business must be controlled and regulated. It is the responsibility of the law to oversee and supervise such control and regulation,” said Prof Gihwala.

He said that, when undesirable consequences occur despite laws enacted specifically to prevent such results, it must be fair to suggest that the law has failed.

“The actual perpetrators of the undesirable behaviour seldom pay for it in any sense, not even when criminal conduct is involved. If directors of companies are criminally charged and convicted, the penalty is invariably a fine imposed on the company. So, ironically, it is the money of tax payers that is spent on investigating criminal conduct, formulating charges and ultimately prosecuting the culprits involved in corporate malpractice,” said Prof Gihwala.

According to Prof Gihwala the law continuously fails to hold companies meaningfully accountable to good and honest business values.

“Insider trading is a crime and, although legislation was introduced in 1998 to curb it, not a single successful criminal prosecution has taken place. While the law appears to be offering the public protection against unacceptable business behaviour, it does no such thing – the law cannot act as a deterrent if it is inadequate or not being enforced,” he said.

The government believed it was important to facilitate access to the country’s economic resources by those who had been denied it in the past. The Broad Based Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 (BBEE), is legislation to do just that. “We should be asking ourselves whether it is really possible for an individual, handicapped by the inequities of the past, to compete in the real business world even though the BBEE Act is now part of the law?,” said Prof Gihwala.

Prof Gihwala said that judges prefer to follow precedent instead of taking bold initiative. “Following precedent is safe at a personal level. To do so will elicit no outcry of disapproval and one’s professional reputation is protected. The law needs to evolve and it is the responsibility of the judiciary to see that it happens in an orderly fashion. Courts often take the easy way out, and when the opportunity to be bold and creative presents itself, it is ignored,” he said.

“Perhaps we are expecting too much from the courts. If changes are to be made to the level of protection to the investing public by the law, Parliament must play its proper role. It is desirable for Parliament to be proactive. Those tasked with the responsibility of rewriting our Companies Act should be bold and imaginative. They should remove once and for all those parts of our common law which frustrate the ideals of our Constitution, and in particular those which conflict with the principles of the BBEE Act,” said Prof Gihwala.

According to Prof Gihwala, the following reforms are necessary:

• establishing a unit that is part of the office of the Registrar of Companies to bolster a whole inspectorate in regard to companies’ affairs;
• companies who are liable to pay a fine or fines, should have the right to take action to recover that fine from those responsible for the conduct;
• and serious transgression of the law should allow for imprisonment only – there should be no room for the payment of fines.

Prof Gihwala ended the lecture by saying: “If the opportunity to re-work the Companies Act is not grabbed with both hands, we will witness yet another failure in the law. Even more people will come to believe that the law is stupid and that it has made fools of them. And that would be the worst possible news in our developing democracy, where we are struggling to ensure that the Rule of Law prevails and that every one of us has respect for the law”.

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