if you wana breed you can start with anything you want, first F1 batch you gona hunt the best pheno and part of that is not selecting the one that gets pm everytime or hermies for no reason... that kinda stuff. and with each next generation you select the one with the most resistance. when people get into stabilising a genetic you have to torture test them every now and then, the one that remains the closest to what you looking for is the one you breed with, this way you select for resistance each time.
but for someone that just wants an easier time at growing in SA, it would be suggested to start off with local genetics as they have already done the breeding and selecting, well.... locally... so the genetics carried in their strains are obviously already more adapted and acustomed to our local environment in terms of wind, heat, frost, indigenous fungal spores, pathogens and pests... all that stuff.
on the other hand someone who's just starting out I wouldn't suggest breeding right away from the first grow and then also I would say go for any genetics, because you're going to have to familiarize yourself with an religious IPM regime either way. at some point, same as all of us, everythings gona be 100% one day an the next day your plant is covered in PM or RSM... not enough regret in the world to explain loosing a whole crop to skipping one simple IPM day... trust me brother, IPM is a must must MUST. so going for local genetics as a way to get around that would be to shoot yourself in the foot. at least you could do with local genetics is still make yourself used to do one spray a week during veg. every week.