‘Title deeds will boost value of East Cape agriculture for all’
Supplying secure land tenure, improving roads and ensuring livestock traceability were three of the key issues raised at a stakeholder meeting hosted by the Eastern Cape rural development and agrarian reform department at Africanos Country Estate in Addo yesterday.
MEC Nonkqubela Pieters said it was important to transform the sector and bridge the divide between “a world-class commercial sector and inefficient developing sector, comprising mainly black producers”.
She said the public and private sector had not successfully partnered to this end on many large-scale agri-programmes over the past 30 years.
“It is estimated that black farmers account for on average less than 10% of commercial agricultural production in SA.”
Pieters said the Eastern Cape played an important role in SA’s export commodity growth as it was the country’s leading exporter of citrus, mohair and wool.
Red meat and grains were also significant contributors.
These commodities showed untapped potential.
She said the provincial agrisector had created 38,600 jobs in the past four years, and her department appreciated the efforts of commercial and smallholder farmers in this regard.
It was the Eastern Cape government’s goal to create a new group of black commercial farmers, but the challenge had been a lack of productive land.
“Since 1994, we have distributed 854 farms to black farmers, but it is not enough, hence this engagement.”
Head of department Bongikhaya Dayimani said food and agri-business was a $5-trillion (R94-trillion) industry globally, and by 2050 the demand for crops to meet human consumption and animal feed requirements would have increased 100%.
At the same time, the world was facing climate change, dwindling water resources and the scourge of degraded land.
He said the Eastern Cape was failing dismally to capitalise on its agricultural assets.
“With all our vast potential, the Eastern Cape is the lowest contributor to SA’s agri-economy. Roads, irrigation schemes, ports and electricity supply are among infrastructure challenges stifling investments.
“A pragmatic approach and investor mindset are needed together with leadership alignment to ensure enabling policies.”
Citrus Growers’ Association general manager Greg Jones said the Eastern Cape citrus industry was set to expand.
“This will create many job opportunities on the farms and along the value chain.”
He said there were considerable investment opportunities in an industry that stood out in terms of the vast volumes of fruit it exported.
“A constraint has been the slow rate of land reform due to state-owned land lying fallow or not being distributed to the previously disadvantaged.”
Jones said infrastructure investment would boost the industry, including building a new road between the citrus hub in the Sundays River Valley and fixing the roads from Hankey and Patensie, where fruit was damaged as it was being trucked to port.
He said transformation in the agri-sector could be improved including by making loans available.
“We also suggest speeding up title deed transfer.”
Industrial Development Corporation senior dealmaker for agro-processing and agriculture Mandisi Rungqu echoed this point.
“If there is no title deed, secure tenure or lease agreement, how do you prove you have control of that land and legal right to it? If you don’t sort that out, it is going to be very difficult to do investment.”
National Agricultural Marketing Council senior manager Bonani Nyhodo said existing facilities and systems needed to be fixed.
“The tallest building in Butterworth is a grain silo but it is not working.
“When I grew up we used to take our livestock every week to the dipping tanks which helped with the control of disease. That has now fallen away.
“Never mind new things, we need to fix the small things like this that are broken.”
Cape Wools SA chief executive Deon Saayman said established, communal and emerging farmers were all commercial farmers as soon as they sought to take their produce to market — and they were all affected by the shocking roads in parts of the Eastern Cape.
Agri Eastern Cape chief executive Brent McNamara, representing the Red Meat Producers Organisation, said while the Eastern Cape had more livestock than any other province in SA, it currently contributed just 8% of SA’s red meat due to various problems in the sector.
“One is traceability, a secure shared system to allow the market to understand precisely where the animal is from and to track disease outbreaks.
“Related to this — we have no foot and mouth but it is coming, and we need significant investment in this regard.”