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MBABANE – The idea to divide government farms into smaller portions and allow interested graduates to utilise them did not get a thumbs-up from the Ministry of Agriculture.
7he suggestion, which was put forward by .ukh anyeni 0ember of 3ar liament 03 0alavi 6i hlongonyane, was that the ministry should consider dividing the government farms into smaller portions of three to four hectares, since many smallholder farmers could not afford to put into good use the bigger farms.
6ihlongonyane then made the sug gestion that government should then allow interested graduates to utilise the farms. 7he suggestion by the 03 formed part of the debates of the min istry¶s portfolio committee second quarter performance report. +owever, the ministry did not seem to support the idea from the legislator. 0inister of $griculture -abulani 0abu]a, through the ministry¶s responses, said while this may appear as a good idea, but in terms of productivity, the subdivision would be counterproductive to achieving production efficiency and profitability, also known as the economies of scale of the farms.
Production
³It should be understood also that the economic benefit comes with large scale production due to the cost re duction and use of mechanisation for increasing production. In large scale production, bigger machinery is used to carry out operations and less time and cost,´ said the minister.
0abu]a said the desire by govern ment was to have large scale production either by a group of individuals work ing together or individuals with the financial muscle to use the farms, rather than having a multitude of individuals doing farming and failing due to high production costs. :orth mentioning is that the 7eaching 6ervice &ommission 76& &hairman 'r $mos 0ahlalela advised unemployed teachers to turn into agriculture and e[plore farming. 6uch advice was not received well by the 6wa]iland 1ational $ssociation of 7eachers 61$7 and the unemployed teachers who took to social media to post pictures of themselves wearing their graduation gowns and tilling the fields. In some of the posts, the unem ployed teachers stated that during his tenure as 1gwane 7eachers 7raining &ollege 3rincipal, 0ahlalela produced thousands of educators. 7hey further said that after leaving the institution, the chairman was now changing tune, advising the very same people he trained to e[plore farming, a skill they did not possess. 'r 0ahlalela, at the time, said regional education officers 5(2s would be requested to register all the interested teachers and after the determination, the commission would seek and send e[perts and technicians to advise on the best possible agricul tural enterprises proMects that could be established. 0eanwhile, the 03 also raised the concern that monitoring of the recipients under the input subsidy programme was lacking as the pro gramme was benefitting undeserving farmers. 6ihlongonyane suggested that there should be procedure of selecting the beneficiaries, in the form of soil testing results for e[ample.
Assessment
7he minister said the ministry was considering doing an assessment of the entire programme in order to identify the loopholes in the provision of the farming inputs and ensuring that the desired goal of improved production, increased yields per unit area and achieving food security was realised within a few years of the investment.
³/ike all government programmes, there are people who take chances to cause the failure of the efforts of government to help the disadvantaged farmers. 7he realisation that the pro gramme was making the desired im pact, government decided to increase the support by increasing the initial budget of ( million to over ( million in the current production sea son,´ shared the minister.
0abu]a e[plained that the pro gramme was initially targeting small holder farmers with land holdings of one hectare, which has since been increased to three hectares.
³$lso, the medium scale producers with five hectares and more are now considered by obtaining the farming input support through (6:$'(. 7his is intended to improve the production of mai]e, dry beans and sorghum, par ticularly for lowveld farmers,´ said the minister. 0abu]a further stated that the participation criterion was ownership of land of the appropriate si]e and having the required initial payment and access to the e[tension service.
+e revealed that the soil test results were used in case the farmer needed to be supplied with free lime by gov ernment.