Agricultural organisations have criticised the budget speech by Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza, saying it fell short of addressing the real economic challenges and the effect of load shedding on farmers, while also failing to address food security.
AGRICULTURAL organisations have criticised the budget speech by Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza, saying it fell short of addressing the real economic challenges and the affect of load shedding on farmers, while failing to address food security.
Delivering her budget vote on Tuesday, Didiza said multifaceted challenges had hindered the ability of traditional agricultural areas, known before as the reserves, to thrive.
“In this financial year we make a case for investment in these areas following the analysis that has been done by our spatial planning unit and the economic team from the NAMC (National Agricultural Marketing Council).
“Through their work it is clear that if we restore even a mere 10% of this land by putting it back into production we can increase the real GDP (gross domestic product) by R59 billion over and above the business-as-usual baseline if everything remains the same. This could unlock approximately 500,000 job opportunities in agriculture and related rural economic activities,” Didiza said.
She said this assessment was supported by work that some of the provinces had done and were doing in mapping the potential of the land for various regions. This work also confirmed the research undertaken in support of the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan.
She said they would upscale the mapping and geo-spatial analysis of communities using drone technology. This analysis would strengthen the department’s understanding of these rural areas that were suitable for crop cultivation and grazing.
Didiza said the overall allocation for this financial year was roughly R17 billion. This 2023/24 allocation would enable the department to implement programmes that continued to address food security needs of communities and the country, address land hunger, transform spatial planning and contribute towards the development of rural areas in partnership with other spheres of government.
Reacting to the budget vote, Bennie van Zyl, the general manager of TLU SA, said it was tough for commercial farmers to stay positive when the state showed little interest in supporting them, and mechanisms such as Onderstepoort failed even to make vaccines available for sheep and horses.
“Didiza’s budget for the next year is once again focused, wrongly, more on the development of subsistence farmers rather than on supporting commercial farmers. It is not subsistence farmers who put food on the table of most South Africans, but commercial farmers,” Van Zyl said.
“TLU SA understands that there needs to be an investment in developing new farmers to meet the demand for food and has indeed offered years ago to share knowledge and experience on this matter, but this should not be at the expense of the farmers who are already doing it under challenging conditions,” Van Zyl said.
The organisation said investment made to support emerging farmers did not justify their achieved outputs. “The department, for example, spent R50 million last year to develop 124 citrus farmers. Yet, they produce only six million of the 128 million boxes of citrus fruit for export.”
Christo van der Rheede, the CEO of Agri SA, said they had repeatedly warned of the growing threat that load shedding presented to food production in the country.
“These warnings are now increasingly being echoed by key players in other sectors, notably in food retail. The urgency of this moment must be reflected in the priorities outlined in today’s agriculture budget vote,” Van der Rheede said.
Agri SA said the department had a hugely significant role in this crisis in regard to basic need-food security and it was vital for the department to work with other relevant government departments to mitigate the crippling impact of load shedding on all farmers.
Agri SA called for the budget to help facilitate market access, lobby for the exclusion of certain commodities from load shedding and to encourage the National Treasury to increase the rebate for solar energy.
– BUSINESS REPORT
