Make farming attractive to EC youth

IT is a cold Tuesday morning, Addo at our feet and we are in the Sundays River area. It’s winter, and the skies are grey and dismal, promising rain.

Addo is awesome, beautiful, geologically well-structured, a small mixed-up municipality struggling mightily in terms of economic development and socio-economic status. Even winter cannot stop this community from picking oranges from the trees in the Addo and Kirkwood area.

It’s harvest time! It is the season for citrus fruit such as oranges and lemons.

As part of our job my team and I are working in the Sundays River area for the day. My colleague and I begin a conversation around the state of affairs and involvement of young people in the agricultural sector, particularly in the Eastern Cape.

This sector has not been “tried”, my colleague believes. My thoughts are it is high time that our education system focuses and consigns its focus into giving farming the same attention it gives to the medical field, engineering, science and other competitive fields out there.

Irrevocably that is what farming deserves. South African youth need to be properly exposed to the culture of agriculture.

I am convinced that the agricultural sector in the Eastern Cape, if not the entire South Africa, has the capacity to absorb most, if not all, unemployed youth in South Africa. Over the past years agriculture has introduced the high-tech methods which can provide enormous opportunities for young people in South Africa to venture into farming and make money.

However, if farming remains an unattractive initiative or venture for South African youth, who make about half of the country’s population, our battle against unemployment and food security remains a mammoth task. I am aware of the fact that enticing youth into farming is not an easy task – obviously there is no “swag” in farming.

It’s sweat, tears, dirt and passion. Time for us to be told farming is a lowly affair that should be left to older citizens of our society is long over.

Some 10 years from now food security will be the order of the day and that will leave us with no choice but to apply a more drastic approach. That approach will not seek analysis from any commentator nor will it seek opinions that floods these pages, but young men and women who will comprehend the fact that our very own gold in the Eastern Cape is land!

Sithembele kaMpokeli, an ardent public servant serving in the department of rural development and agrarian reform, Eastern Cape, writing in his personal capacity