Why do we fund research?
In his introductory address, Prof. Wiehann Steyn, General Manager of Hortgro Science and Crop Production Programme Manager, outlined the three leading reasons for funding research.
“The first – and obvious – reason is solving problems,” he said. “Our industry faces many problems, and research helps our growers to overcome them.”
Secondly, many research projects involve postgraduate students who often go on to join the industry. “Just look at the technical people around you,” said Steyn. “Most of them have come through the Hortgro Science programme, completing their MSc or even their PhD on a Hortgro-funded project.”
Lastly, research builds capacity. Hortgro funding develops expertise that’s available to deal with the emergence of new problems.
For example, Hortgro Science has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining institutions such as PHYLA, the industry’s phytosanitary research facility, and positions such as the Postharvest Physiology Research Chair in Deciduous Fruit in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Stellenbosch University, currently held by Dr Elke Crouch.
“You need to have a strategy to know what things to spend money on,” said Steyn. “If funding is limited, as it inevitably is, you don’t want to spend money on everything because then nobody gets enough to do a proper job.”
Hortgro Science revises its strategy every five years, starting with an assessment of the risks facing the deciduous-fruit industry. Steyn presented their most recent risk heat map, developed in March 2025. The heat map charts risks according to their probability and impact. Research prioritises those risks that score the highest on both attributes.
Currently, the most significant risks include phytosanitary and biosecurity threats, water insecurity, loss of chemicals, climate change and extreme weather, poor plant material, and unreliable logistics.
“Efficiency throughout the entire value chain is a strong driver for us,” said Steyn. “We need to address the key risks to the sustainability of our industry, and we have to provide information to access, develop, and maintain local and export markets.”
He listed the five focus areas of Hortgro Science’s long-term research and development strategy:
- Securing market access and managing phytosanitary and invasive pests
and diseases. - Increasing production efficiency in terms of export volumes per hectare.
- Mitigating climate change and optimising water productivity.
- Improving the quality and availability of plant material.
- Maintaining postharvest quality and reducing risks throughout the value chain.
These focus areas align with the risks highlighted on the heat map.
Where is the money going?
“If you look at where we’re spending money, you can see that it’s on the key issues,” said Steyn, referring to a chart showing the allocation of research funds (Figure 1).
For the 2023/4 financial year, the total Hortgro Science budget was just under R40 million, of which 74% was allocated to research projects and 12% to research posts. “Research posts are people whom we second to critical positions at universities, where they train students and do research,” clarified Steyn.
Hortgro Science currently funds 97 projects, with 27 new projects that came online in 2024/5. “We recently had a group from South Tyrol visiting us,” said Steyn. “They were very surprised by how much we achieve with our available funds.”
He discussed how funding of Hortgro Science’s three research programmes – Crop Production, Crop Protection, and Postharvest – has altered since 2013/4. Whereas Hortgro Science spent 27% of its budget on breeding 10 years ago, it no longer funds breeding, instead choosing to invest in cultivar evaluation.
Over the past decade, spending on crop protection has increased from 20 – 45% of the budget, representing the largest shift in funding. The increased emphasis on market access is one reason for the growth in crop-protection funding, as this programme includes several market-access projects.
The funding process
Steyn took the audience through the process for allocating research funding.
In the first step, various technical advisory committees and workgroups identify the knowledge gaps and research needs, based on the Hortgro Science research strategy and industry requirements. Nearly 200 people participate in this effort – a truly consultative undertaking involving growers, technical advisers, and researchers.
The result is a list of questions that is circulated to research providers to call for proposals. Interested researchers submit concept proposals for review by the technical advisory committees. These committees then choose the most promising projects and request full proposals from the researchers.
The full proposals are reviewed for their scientific merit by peer workgroups and ranked in importance by the technical advisory committees. Based on the reviews and rankings, Hortgro Science determines which projects can be funded with the available financial resources and submits a budget to the Pome and Stone Producer’s Councils for funding.
To close the loop, Hortgro Science communicates the details and results of research projects to the industry through publications such as the Fresh Quarterly and the South African Fruit Journal, events such as the Research Showcase and the Technical Symposium, and on the Hortgro Science website.
Recently, Hortgro Science launched its online, searchable research library, which contains the abstracts of approximately 400 completed projects.
Get involved
Hortgro Science has three research programmes: Crop Production, led by Steyn, Crop Protection, led by Dr Minette Karsten, and Postharvest, led by Dr Mariana Jooste. All three programme managers presented short introductions of their programmes at the Research Showcase.
They all extended an open invitation to the industry to contact them if they have any questions or want to get involved in research at Hortgro. Their details appear below, as well as on the Hortgro Science website.
- Prof. Wiehann Steyn, Hortgro Science General Manager and Crop Production Prog-ramme Manager: wiehann@hortgro.co.za.
- Dr Minette Karsten, Crop Protection Programme Manager: minettek@sun.ac.za.
- Dr Mariana Jooste, Postharvest Pro-gramme Manager: mariana@hortgro.co.za.
