Farmers urged to plough ‘sleeping’ land to create jobs

PLOUGHING vast tracts of “sleeping” fields was key to creating jobs and alleviating poverty in the rural Eastern Cape.

This is according to Deputy Labour Minister Phathekile Holomisa, who was speaking on the sidelines of a Farmer’s Day event in Qhumanco administrative area outside Cofimvaba yesterday.

Holomisa said it was not wise for black South Africans to demand the return of dispossessed land while they were sitting on barren land.

Instead, he said black farmers should use the 13% of land left in their hands to feed families.

“We need to use the communal land that we have to the maximum and be able to say, ‘you see, we have used all the land in the communal areas and now we need more’,” he said.

“It doesn’t help us to be calling for the return of land that is being used by whites productively when we are unable as a people, even as government, to use to the maximum the amount of land that we have.”

Holomisa, who attended the event in his capacity as a traditional leader, said it did not make sense for villagers to buy vegetables from supermarkets when the same products were grown in the same soil where they lived.

He said the government was ready to help farmers with funding and encouraged traditional leaders to grab “sleeping” fields and plough them.

“They must go to every door – the municipalities, mayors, councillors, all spheres of government,” he said.

Hundreds of crop and livestock farmers attended the event, which also doubled as a platform to share advice and exchange information among emerging and developed farmers in the province.