Black maize farmers to link up with buyers

NEW black maize farmers in the province will soon be selling their crop to established bigger commercial operations.

Rural development and agrarian reform MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane met with farmers in Ntabankulu on Thursday to discuss the new deal.

Qoboshiyane was accompanied by Ntabankulu mayor Vusi Mgoduka.

The MEC’s delegation visited once-fallow land, where the Amantontana Agro-Processing Corporative, a local cooperative working with help from the department, has produced 125ha of maize.

He told the Saturday Dispatch the cooperative was struggling to find a buyer and forced to store the harvested crop in silos.

“The point of the meeting was to call on larger commercial agriculture entities to let the rural farmers sell their produce them,” Qoboshiyane said.

“This will help in our efforts to re-industrialise rural agriculture. It will also provide the rural farmers with additional income to improve their lives.”

The MEC said his department would facilitate meetings between commercial agriculture customers to persuade them to buy maize and other commodities from cooperatives and emerging farmers. to

Qoboshiyane also said the department would link rural farmers, such as those in the Amantontana coop, to sell their maize to the province’s four rural enterprise development hubs in Mbizana, Mqanduli, Ncora and Emalahleni.

“These hubs have state-of-theart milling as part of the ongoing programme to commercialise agriculture in the province which will help to alleviate poverty,” he said.