Department to reshape budget for graduates to start enterprises
The Eastern Cape department of rural development and agrarian reform will reshape its budget to assist unemployed agriculture graduates start their own businesses.
This was revealed by department head Siphokazi Ndudane during a three-day induction programme for the third cohort of graduates that have been placed by the department in farms and agriculture businesses in the province as part of a programme to help it reduce graduate unemployment.
The two-year entrepreneurial placement programme of 120 unemployed graduates is funded through the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (Casp) and is an opportunity for young people to be placed in farms and related enterprises to gain entrepreneurial experience so that they become job creators.
“The important thing is that we don’t want to do a hit and run, where we take 120 graduates for two years and after that they go back to being unemployed,” Ndudane said.
“We should look at how we avail government resources to these youngsters so that they can stretch their ideas in whatever ... they want to venture into.
“In that vein we want to look at how we refocus and reshape the budget of the department.”
She said the department had a sizeable support budget and that there was a need to look at how the portion of this budget could be set aside to help graduates start their own enterprises.
“We are not going to achieve development and the results we want to see if we don’t become intentional.
“As long as we beat about the bush ... doing little bits everywhere, we are not going to make an impact.
“We are looking at how we concentrate our resources and fine tune the programme to address the problem.”
She said the department would engage the department of small business and private sector partners to incubate the agricultural ideas of the 120 graduates.
“We want to see what we can do to grow the participation of young people — blacks in particular — in the agriculture sector so that is the bigger aim of this programme,” she said.
Ndudane said the Eastern Cape had potential because of its natural resources, good climate and good soils. “But we’ve been literally stuck in the potential as a province,” she said.
“We have not been able to exploit that potential. We want to increase the pool of entrepreneurs in the agricultural space. “We want the graduates to be able to think on their own and see how they can create jobs.
“We do understand that we don’t actively bring in the young people who can think differently of the sector, who have different energy ... in this sector,” she said.
Ndudane said there was an older generation of farmers, so government was looking at how to attract young people because they will come with more energy and more innovative ideas on how to drive agriculture.
One of graduates, Qaqamba Mampofu, 24, who completed a diploma in crop production at the Fort Cox Agriculture and Forestry Training Institute, welcomed the opportunity, saying it would enhance her skills.
“This opportunity means I’ll be getting more skills than I got from school, I’ll be practically doing what I learnt from Fort Cox and my knowledge will expand in practice.
“As a person I will be elevating myself, my character and I’ll be able to overcome certain challenges. I know that being part of this programme will be challenging.
“At the same time it will build me to be the farmer I want to be,” Mampofu said.
Talitha Pharma chief operations manager Mvuyisi Mbotshelwa, whose enterprise has been part of the programme for the second time, said the programme was worthwhile.
“We take this programme very seriously and from the word go, we took a decision to be part of this programme because we knew it was addressing youth unemployment.
“Beyond addressing unemployment, it ensures that there are young people that are groomed to venture into agriculture, because agriculture is playing a huge role in economic development of this province.
“We are making a contribution by mentoring them not to be job seekers but to start their own businesses after they have learnt from our experiences,” Mbotshelwa said.
In the current financial year, agriculture MEC Nonkqubela Pieters announced that R10.9m was allocated for the programme to place 120 graduate interns in various commercial agriculture enterprises from March 2021 until March 2023.