Reserve Bank prudential authority head Kuben Naidoo will deliver the inaugural Mohammad Karaan memorial address hosted by the faculty of agrisciences at Stellenbosch University (SU).
Karaan, a former faculty dean and member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s high-level panel on land reform and agriculture, died of Covid-19-related complications in January last year. At the time of his passing, he was a professor in agricultural economics at SU and also president of the Maties rugby club.
The memorial address, which will be live-streamed via MS Teams, will be on Wednesday, 13 April at 17:00. While paying tribute to Karaan’s life and memory, Naidoo will focus on the role of finance in transforming agriculture.
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Agriculture and the economy
In a media release, emeritus professor Nick Vink from SU says Karaan had an uncanny ability to place the agricultural sector within the broader environment within which it operates.
“One could talk to him about land reform, and he would immediately raise the economic inequality in our country, and its origins. Talk to him about research and development, and he would place the issue within the broader perspective of the role of technology in economic growth.
“Tell him that researchers in the faculty of agrisciences were doing important work on major issues, and he would want to know what the impact on the food security of poor households was, and so forth.”
Vink adds, “The main aim of the annual Mohammad Karaan memorial address is, therefore, to ask memorial lecturers to make these links between agriculture and the broader economic, social, political, natural resource and technology environments more explicit, and in so doing to show researchers, students and the broader public alike where their work fits into the bigger picture.”
Meanwhile, Professor Danie Brink, dean of the faculty of agrisciences, describes the death of Karaan as “a huge loss to the South African agricultural sector at large, and in particular also to our faculty. He was a special man who had the ability to bring people from different spheres together. His heart was in agriculture, and he believed in strengthening it.”
The memorial address will take place in hybrid format. Friends, colleagues, business leaders and representatives from various agricultural businesses as well as Maties Sport and Maties Rugby will attend the lecture at Lanzerac wine estate in Stellenbosch.
- To join the live-stream of the memorial address, email ccav@sun.ac.za by 17:00 today.
ALSO READ: Karaan: ‘Best minister of agriculture we never had’
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