Green Master Vegetables Business Plan — Sensitivity and Scenarios

How the plan responds to price, yield, input cost and water availability moving against it, with downside and upside cases.

Sensitivity and Scenarios

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16.1 Single-variable sensitivity
16.2 Scenarios
16.3 What management can do inside a bad year

16.1 Single-variable sensitivity

Figure 20. Sensitivity of Year 5 EBITDA.

Driver	Effect on Year 5 EBITDA	As a share of base EBITDA	Comment
Market price ±25%	±R5 203’000	152%	A potato-style crash. Almost entirely outside the farmer’s control
Market price ±10%	±R2 081’000	61%	An ordinary season’s movement in fresh produce
Yield ±15%	±R3 122’000	91%	Heat, hail or disease; more likely than a price crash in any given season
Packaging and transport ±15%	±R918’000	27%	Tonnage-driven and exposed to a 53.8% diesel movement
Fertiliser and chemicals ±20%	±R775’000	23%	Input price and application discipline
Labour ±15%	±R344’000	10%	Sectoral determination and headcount
Commission channel shift ±5 points	±R132’000	4%	The lever management actually controls
Year 5 EBITDA, base case	R3 421’000	100%

Price dominates and it is almost entirely outside the farmer’s control. A 25 per cent price fall, which is what a potato-style crash looks like, takes Year 5 EBITDA to approximately minus R1.78 million. A 15 per cent yield shortfall from heat, hail or disease costs R3.12 million, which is less but is more likely to happen in any given season.

The two largest exposures both exceed the base EBITDA of R3.42 million. That is the characteristic of a high-operating-leverage business and it should be read alongside Section 14.3: revenue moves and the fixed cost base does not.

Figure 21. Year 5 EBITDA across price and planted area.

The grid shows the interaction that matters. At the planned 45 hectares the farm tolerates a price fall of roughly 15 per cent before EBITDA turns negative; at 51 hectares it tolerates about 20 per cent. Area buys tolerance on price, which is the commercial argument for the Year 5 expansion, but only if the water is confirmed, because the same arithmetic in reverse applies to hectares that cannot be irrigated.

16.2 Scenarios

Figure 22. Year 5 EBITDA across scenarios, with debt service cover.

Scenario	Definition	Year 5 revenue	Year 5 EBITDA	Cover
Base	The plan as presented: 45 hectares, 3 188 tonnes, 58% through market agents.	R20.81m	R3.42m	1.93x
Price down 10%	Market price 10% below plan — an ordinary season.	R18.73m	R1.34m	0.63x
Yield shortfall	Yield 15% below plan from heat, hail or disease.	R17.69m	R0.30m	0.14x
Price down 25%	A potato-style crash. Not a remote scenario in fresh produce.	R15.61m	(R1.78m)	n/m
Price and yield	Price 15% down and yield 10% down in the same season.	R13.27m	(R3.34m)	n/m

Why the sensitivity range is deliberately wider than in most plans

Most business plans test plus or minus ten per cent on price. In fresh produce that is not a stress test, it is a normal season. In a single month of 2026 potato prices crashed while tomatoes and onions strengthened, and the peer-reviewed study of 2019 to 2024 prices found Johannesburg shocks rippling through every other market within a month. A 25 per cent fall is therefore modelled as a named scenario rather than as a remote tail, and it takes the farm to minus R1.78 million of EBITDA with no debt service capacity at all. The structural responses are in the plan rather than in the forecast: a rising direct channel with negotiated prices, staggered plantings that average across market windows, a crop mix with no line above 30 per cent of area, and facilities that can defer amortisation for a season.

16.3 What management can do inside a bad year

Lever	Available within	Value	Comment
Defer the next area expansion	One season	R2.39m to R2.50m of capital and its service	The gates in Section 10 make this automatic
Accelerate the channel shift	One season	R47 000 a percentage point	The fastest available response and it costs nothing
Hold back planting on marginal blocks	One planting cycle	Seed, fertiliser and labour not committed	Only available before planting; the decision window is short
Renegotiate transport on volume	One quarter	Up to R918 000 on a 15% movement	Combined loads and direct delivery avoid a second handling
Shift mix toward tunnel crops	One season	27.5 times the margin per hectare	Constrained by existing tunnel area; not a within-year lever
Reduce chemical programme to thresholds	Immediately	Part of R775 000 on a 20% movement	Scouting rather than calendar spraying; genuine saving, real risk
Defer owner remuneration	Immediately	R510 000 a year at Year 5	Available, unpleasant, and the reason it is budgeted rather than assumed away

The first three are the ones that work. Deferring an expansion removes both the capital and the debt service it would carry; accelerating the channel shift is free; and holding back marginal blocks avoids committing seed and fertiliser to a crop that will sell into a weak market. The last four each borrow from a future season or from the founder, and an operator reaching for them repeatedly is managing a decline rather than a season.

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