South Africa (SA) – also called “most beautiful end of the world“ is the very southern point of Africa, summing up to more than one billion square kilometres. That equals three to four times the size of Germany. South Africa shares borders with Namibia, Botswana, Simbabwe, Mosambik, Lesotho and Swaziland.
50 billion people live in South Africa. To compare: Germany has about 82 billion inhabitants on one third of land. Because of the mixture of skin colour South Africa is also called “rainbow-nation”. The diverse history and the different cultures result in 11 official languages. Zulu is the most common one (24%), followed by Xhosa (18%) and Afrikaans (13%). English is the first language for less than 10% of the population. Many South Africans know more than one language, English or Afrikaans being one of them.
One of the major differences between dairy production in South Africa and Europe is the system of subsidies. There are no subsidies for dairy farmers in South Africa. At the same time there are only very few rules on how to treat animals or the environment.
All in all South Africa produced 2.6 billion litres of milk in 2011. That equals an increase by 20 percent in the past seven years. Since 2011 milk production is rather stable as the milk prices did not compensate increasing fodder prices. Therefore producers did not increase milk production with the same drive as before.
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