Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
MEC: farmers must embrace agro-processing
Will add value, incentivise innovation, reverse job losses and grow the sector, says Winde
WESTERN Cape farmers must look to agro-processing – the industry that turns raw agricultural products like grapes into higher value goods like wine – to reverse job losses and grow the sector, the province’s new Agriculture MEC said this week.
Premier Helen Zille announced on Wednesday that Alan Winde would head the new portfolio of Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism. Agriculture was previously a standalone portfolio.
Winde served as MEC for Finance, Economic Development and Tourism in Zille’s first executive.
Speaking to the Weekend Argus, Winde said agroprocessing was the “future of the farming sector”.
Agro- processing is also highlighted in the National Development Plan – which all major parties but the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have endorsed – as a way to grow the agricultural sector.
Using the country’s successful wine industry as an exam- ple, Winde said agro-processing not only added value – a bottle of wine is more valuable than a bunch of grapes – but also incentivised innovation in related fields.
Stellenbosch University’s Institute for Wine Biotechnology, for instance, houses stateof-the-art laboratories where wine yeasts and bacteria are studied. The research is used to better understand local vines and grapes.
According to the Agriculture Department, South Africa exported wine worth close to R7 billion in the 2012/13 financial year.
Much of it was produced in the Western Cape’s wine-growing regions, while some came from the banks of the Orange River in the Northern Cape.
Winde said agro-processing could create new jobs in a sector that had suffered considerable job losses over the past two decades.
According to the SA Institute of Race Relations, roughly a quarter of agricultural jobs countrywide were lost between 2001 and last year, as the number of farmworkers declined from 969 000 to 712 000.
The new MEC, who will be sworn in on Monday, said job losses had been “exacerbated and even speeded up” due to labour unrest in areas such as De Doorns.
He aimed to “sit there with the workers that are facing problems” to discuss their fears about job losses.
In the coming weeks, he would travel across the province to meet workers, agri-businesses, farmers and labour unions.
On the issue of land reform, largely a function of national government, Winde said it had to be done in a way that didn’t cause “instability”.
He said the DA supported reform, including the recent opening of certain pre- 1913 claims, with conditions. “If there are people that have fallen out of the system, we must allow them in. This is not about taking a well-functioning unit and disrupting it. This is about how to compensate that person. For example, let’s use state land and existing land. Let’s not upset the market.”
The issue of how much land will be redistributed, who will benefit and who will pay how much for it has been a contentious issue, included in campaigning in the recent national election.
Winde’s predecessor, Gerrit van Rensburg, had an awkward relationship with Tina Joemat- Pettersson, the national Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister.
Earlier this year, for instance, Van Rensburg said Joemat-Pettersson was making “baseless statements” that Western Cape farmers still paid workers with alcohol.
This after Joemat-Pettersson was quoted in Die Burger as saying the “dop system” was still intact.
Winde acknowledged the province and the national minister had had a “difficult” relationship in the past, but said “both sides could turn the page”.
It is unclear whether Joemat-Pettersson will continue in her post, as President Jacob Zuma will only announce his cabinet after his inauguration today.
“If it happens to be the same minister I will start off with saying: ‘I am new in this position. What are the problems? Let’s fix them’,” Winde said.