Programme director, please allow me to extend my warmest welcome to all our distinguished guests, our valued speakers, government officials in attendance, and last but not least, members of cooperatives who are here with us today.
Programme director, I would like to take this opportunity to clearly spell out where I see cooperatives fitting into our collective work programme. In short, cooperatives are central to our mission of promoting agricultural development, rural job creation, and food security. But how so?
In the first place, it is important to remember that one of the key aspects of our agrarian reform programme is the promotion of our smallholder sector. Of course, we already have a smallholder sector, but it is small and weak. Our objective is to make it stronger, more prosperous and larger. We want to do this not merely because our targets say we must, but because without a vibrant smallholder sector, there is little hope for rural development in this country.
Smallholder agriculture must form the basis for rural development, particularly within the former homelands. The land is there, the people are there, even the demand for food is there. But by and large our successful farmers in these areas are few and far between, while most of the food bought and consumed in these areas is 'imported' from outside.
What is holding us back? Unfortunately, many things, and what we are presently doing is making changes on a number of fronts at the same time. It is not easy.
Speaking specifically of cooperatives, part of our problem with cooperatives is that we have not always been clear as to what function they serve. We know they can be good, and we even readily agree that they are essential, but because we do not always share a common understanding as to why precisely we need them, we support them in sometimes arbitrary or inappropriate ways. And then, not surprisingly, we don't get the results we want.
So why do we still bother? One reason is because we see the importance of cooperatives elsewhere. I myself am aware of the crucial role that cooperatives play in farmer development in a whole variety of countries, including Brazil, China, India, Spain, Italy, Greece, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Programme director, agricultural development is indeed dependent upon effective cooperatives. The mobilisation of smallholder farmers into functional cooperatives is key to achieving our goals, but we have to do better than we've managed up to now. When Dr Myeni made a request for the hosting of this Indaba, I welcomed the initiative in the belief that this Indaba will assist us in identifying our challenges and charting a successful way forward.
I am told that the department has captured 836 cooperatives on the CODAS system. Out of these 836 cooperatives, only about 200 cooperatives can be viewed as being "functional". Still, if these 200 were vibrant cooperatives with lots of members that would be one thing.
But I further understand that that the vast majority of the cooperatives captured on our system are production cooperatives, meaning that individuals come together in order to farm as a group. While sometimes this works, most often it does not. Even when it does work, it is not always clear what it truly achieves.
Let us look at this closely. What is agrarian reform? It is not simply replacing some large-scale white farmers with some large-scale black farmers, although this may be part of it. By the same token, it is not merely replacing a large-scale white farmer with a cooperative composed of black individuals.
Land redistribution has attempted to do precisely this, and we have seen the results. Where land redistribution projects did not completely collapse due to group dynamics, they carried on with the same capital-intensive farm plan as the previous farmer. This is a kind of cosmetic agrarian reform that does not promote the advantages of smallholder farming, namely labour-intensity and higher land productivity. Rather, it reveals our lack of regard for small-scale farming.
So if we don't want production cooperatives, what kinds of cooperatives do we want? What we want are cooperatives that allow smallholder farmers to carry on as smallholders, but which in effect compensate for the disadvantages of being small. In other words, we want cooperatives that ease smallholders' access to affordable inputs and financial services, and that assist smallholders to participate in beneficiation and marketing opportunities.
The general term for these sorts of cooperatives is 'marketing cooperatives' (secondary cooperatives), though there are a number of variations in terms of emphasis or specific function. But the general theme is, to allow smallholders to remain smallholders, while enjoying the advantages of participating in a organisation whose purpose is to provide mutual support in critical functions that smallholders otherwise struggle with. This will both allow existing smallholders to thrive, and more rural dwellers to join the ranks of the smallholder sector.
Accordingly, I would like to respectfully submit that the title of this Indaba is a bit backwards. The title refers to: 'enabling smallholder farmers to play a critical role in the establishment of sustainable cooperative enterprises'. I would suggest that a better way of expressing it is to 'support the development of cooperatives so that they in turn enable smallholder farmers to play their rightful, critical role in agricultural and rural development.'
Much of this two-day Indaba is designed to go into the detail of the different functions that cooperatives can serve. I know from discussions with colleagues, and merely from glancing at the programme, that much of the thrust of this Indaba is to assist us to raise our sights above the production cooperatives where we have become a bit stuck.
Through you, programme director, I would also like to plead with all participants in this Indaba that we discuss the practical implications of this refined vision. What specifically must we do to support the emergence of more and stronger marketing cooperatives? What exactly should these cooperatives look like? Who should do what? What tools do we already have at our disposal for this work, and what tools do we still need to develop?
It is my wish for example that this Indaba will identify tangible steps that will assist us in implementing the Zero Hunger Programme. We have created the Zero Hunger Programme in order to fast-track efforts to address our dual problems of rural under-development and food insecurity. In Summary, the Zero Hunger Programme seeks to guarantee a market for smallholder farmers by seeking all government procurement for food from smallholder farmers.
Whenever government buys food for patients in hospitals, students at institutions of higher learning; school-feeding schemes for learners, inmates at prisons or awaiting-trial persons at police station holding cells, that bulk-buying of food should be set aside and be procured entirely from smallholder farmers. This will go a long way in reviving the rural economy of our country.
At the same time, however, we should be asking whether a reinvigorated cooperatives strategy could also hold the key to addressing the ills that affect our large-scale farming sector. After all, it was largely thanks to cooperatives that white commercial farming became such a dynamic sector in South Africa in the past, but with the disappearance of most of these co-ops, we observe that many commercial farms towards the smaller end of the spectrum are not surviving. Their demise has meant increasing rural unemployment, which contributes further to our unemployment crisis.
So although we see that cooperatives strategy as of particular relevance to the smallholder agenda and the Zero Hunger Programme, we should also be asking questions as to its applicability elsewhere. This could have implications for what kind of cooperatives we want to promote, with what kinds of members, and so forth.
Programme director, the United Nations has proclaimed 2012 as the "International Year of Cooperatives", and their slogan is "Cooperatives Build a Better World". In my humble view, there cannot be a better world through cooperatives unless they are properly organised so that all key role players can begin to play their part. I am pleased to learn that delegates have been drawn from all key organisations so that as we debate issues, we should not leave any stone unturned.
As Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, I would like to thank colleagues in the Economic Development, Trade and Marketing Branch for taking the initiative to host and organise this Indaba, and indeed for opening up this issue to the close scrutiny that it deserves.
I would also like to welcome every participant who is here today, and urge you all to engage in robust but productive debate. I may not be with you for the entire Indaba, but would like to inform you that tomorrow evening there will be a gala dinner where prizes will be awarded to the best performing cooperatives in the sector. Everyone is invited!
Thank you for your attention, and most of all for your participation!
