01/12/2025
By Dr Jack Armour (a M.Sc.Agric. and PhD student and lecturer under Prof Viljoen)
As the Agricultural Economic fraternity, our heartfelt appreciation for the life of Prof Giel, as he was affectionally known, for the care, meaning, and moral guidance modelled in his work and instilled in his students.
We extend our sincere condolences to his family.
Prof Giel’s focus and passion, and mark he certainly left, was on water economics; from flood to droughts, salinization & drainage, eutrophication, floodplains, wetlands, irrigation and economic development, Prof Viljoen led students to integtate these, often new fields for the students, with academic rigor and discipline and affiliation for the social and moral implications of their work.
Prof. Viljoen co-authored many papers on regional socioeconomics in his earlier years. With his deep understanding of the economic impacts on the moral and ethical dimensions of affected farmers and communities, his work looked holistically at the problem, integrating science, economics, and sociology in a multidisciplinary approach.
Prof Giel, was employed at the University of the Free State since 1972, starting at the Institute for Social and Economic Research. He was a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of the Free State (UFS) from 1985 until his retirement in 2010. During this period, he served as Head of the Department from 1986 to 1997. Under his leadership, the Department of Agricultural Economics experienced strong growth. Personnel numbers tripled through the appointment of contract personnel. With the main focus on research, the department matured as the department with the highest research output in the faculty.
A significant part of his work involved developing computer models to address practical issues in water management. This included models to assess damage caused by floods in urban and irrigation areas for flood control planning, to quantify the socio-economic impact of water restrictions on different sectors of the economy, etc.
Prof Giel was and remains a prominent South African agricultural economist and academic, renowned for his expertise in resource and environmental economics, particularly focusing on water economics and utilisation. His academic legacy includes over 12 PhD dissertations and 25 Master's theses that he supervised, as well as over 100 publications to his credit. Furthermore, the many students Prof lectured and chaperoned on exchange programmes to Michigan State University, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech (VPI), and Minnesota State University will remember him fondly. I personally was on a Master's exchange to VPI, where Prof. Viljoen was a father figure to the students away from home— his door was always open to discuss issues and problems. Reading the dedications/acknowledgements in his students’ theses is a testament to this, with Ethiopian, Ghanian, Eritrean and other students being particularly touched by how Prof Giel and Tannie Cora made them feel welcome in South Africa, inviting them to their home for meals and compassionately assisting when a crisis occurred.
I was immensely privileged to attend the World Water Congress in Melbourne in 2000 with Prof Giel, preceded by a tour of the Murray-Darling Basin led by Prof Norman Dudley, a pioneer of water market modelling. During this memorable week-long trip with Prof Giel driving from Sydney to Melbourne, I got to know Prof Giel very well and experienced his calm demeanour under stress and firm yet always fair management style.
Some of the highlights of Prof Giel’s career:
• Representing South Africa on the Flood Management Working Group of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage from 1998.
• Presenting the F.R. Tomlinson Commemorative Lecture in 2002, the same year he received honorary membership from the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA).
• Being elected President of AEASA in 2003.
• Co-submitting, with Prof. Jan Groenewald, the proposal in 2001/2002 to establish the AEASA Bursary Trust Fund in honour of Prof. Bax Nomvete’s contribution to South African and African agricultural economics and policy.
• Co-publishing, as early as 2008, the paper Global warming and climate change with reference to South Africa. Some perspectives on the now highly topical issues of global warming and climate change.
• Being recognised in Prof. Johan Kirsten’s 2010 F.R. Tomlinson Commemorative Lecture, as one of the South African researchers with the highest international recognition based on ISI citations and h-index—alongside Rashid Hassan, Michael Aliber, and Johann Kirsten.
After retiring, Prof Viljoen devoted himself to his family and grandchildren.
The passing of his wife, Tannie Cora, placed a huge burden on his emotional well-being. In the last few years, I’d received feedback from his good friend, Hans Janse van Rensburg, and Louise Hoffman, who had been his secretary for many years, that he was doing okay. I will be forever grateful for the potential Prof. Giel saw in me when he “recalled” me from being a tour guide in Southern Africa to come do my Master's on a WRC project he had for me. Prof. Giel left a lasting mark on all he lectured, mentored, and led, and will be remembered fondly in the Agricultural Economics fraternity and at the University of the Free State.
