Turning the province into the food basket of the SADC

Extension services key to region’s ongoing agricultural development

THE rural Eastern Cape had taken a “conscious decision to turn the province into the food basket of the SADC region”, it was announced by Premier Phumulo Masualle during the state of the province address.

“To this effect, agriculture is key in promoting local economic development, ensuring food security and employment creation,” the premier declared.

“We have supported smallholder farmers with infrastructure, inputs and implements, as well as training. And 386 permanent jobs and 137 temporary jobs were created,” he said, referring to the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (DRDAR) 2016/17.

To make this happen, the province has adopted the Agricultural Economic Transformation Strategy, a dynamic and fresh approach implemented and supported by equally fresh and committed support services.

Extension and advisory services, whose officials work directly with the communities, have been identified as a key in achieving the goals set by the strategy.

Emphasising the importance of extension services, DRDAR MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane, during the tabling of the 2017/18 policy speech at the legislature, said extension services were “the backbone of implementing our transformation strategy”.

He said R77-million had been allocated to provide for the operational activities of 619 extension officers across the province, adding that DRDAR had adopted a commodity and cluster-based extension support.

This support will increase the number of smallholder producers supported by the department from 1 205 to 1 540.

“Extension services are the coalface of the support services provided by the department, and implementation of the strategy.”

“They are required to lead and facilitate the adoption of appropriate technical skills development among farmers, together with other commercial technical support from commodity organisations and input suppliers.

The strategy is a new approach to development of the sector in a bid to achieve a contribution by the agricultural sector of at least 2% to the provincial economy and create 10 000 job opportunities per annum.

The targeted expansion across the commodities is set to benefit 10 354 smallholder and emerging commercial farmers and create an estimated 6 095 jobs.

This expansion in production will, when in full production, contribute about R15.8-billion to the gross value of the sector.

The strategy is designed to unlock this potential and contribute meaningfully to economic growth and employment opportunities for unskilled and semi-skilled youth in a province in desperate need of such opportunities.

The guiding principles of the strategy are to develop smallholder and communal farmers into agro-entrepreneurs.

This will be done by engaging business partners that are in- centivised through securing feedstock, market access, transformation, investment and business opportunity where limited strategic investment by the government contributes to mitigation of investment risks.

These partnerships will ensure expansion of production, market access, training and farmer development, value addition, increased employment, improved gross product value and net farm income, SMME development opportunity, total investment and transformation within the industry.

The strategy is aligned with the provincial Masiphathisane concept, which aims to have “war rooms” in all the wards in a bid to bring together communities, stakeholders and government officials to improve service delivery and better relations between communities and the government.

The department has crafted its strategy to ensure each ward has an extension officer responsible for its implementation.

386 permanent jobs and 137 temporary jobs were created