M Masuku: Agri Mpumalanga Congress

30 May 2006

Agri Mpumalanga President, Mr Koot Claassen
Vice President Agri Mpumalanga, Mr Eckhardt Paul
President WAU Mpumalanga, Ms Hendrietta Schoeman
Ladies and gentleman

Few days ago we celebrated great days, days with great history, marked with
memorable traces of the celebration of the attainment of our freedom as a
non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united and prosperous nation.

It was a timely and relevant that President, Thabo Mbeki, reiterated that
the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of our Constitution is as a consequence
of struggles that were waged to attain our freedom. During the celebration of
the constitution the President said:

“Determined to honour the vision of those who laid down their own lives for
our freedom as we adopted the Constitution we committed ourselves to work for
the reconstruction and development of our country so that on time but as quick
as possible, none of our people should be condoned to suffer from hunger, from
the degradation of poverty, the humiliation of homelessness, the indignity of
joblessness or the marginalisation caused by illiteracy.”

Truly, as a province we also stood up and celebrated with our compatriots
the 50 years of the Freedom Charter, through the theme that “South Africa
belongs to all who live in it”.

As Government we remain positive that as fellow South Africans we are all
determined to see the economic growth increasing to 6% by 2014, we need to put
all our collective efforts as the agricultural sector and brace ourselves to
deal with the peculiar challenges we are confronted with.

We believe that through the agricultural sector we can improve our
socio-economic condition a view also expressed by Gunar Myrdal, a Nobel
laureate in Economics when he asserted that:
“It is in the agricultural sector that the battle for long-term economic
development will be won or lost.”

As a Department responsible for the agricultural sector, environmental
sector and land administration activities, we cannot agree more with Gunnar
Myrdal.

The agricultural sector remains one of the key sectors in the economy, the
province included. Its ability to contribute meaningful towards poverty
alleviation, job creation and rural development cannot be overemphasised.

The role of agriculture in the economy of the country was also emphasised by
Minister Thoko Didiza in her recent Budget speech in Parliament on the 28th of
March 2006 when she argued that” every R100 that is invested in agriculture
generates more jobs and income distribution that in any other sector of the
economy the share of the sector on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has fallen
consistently over the past five years…yet in terms of employment the sector is
still a major employer. Furthermore, more than 3 million people that live below
the poverty line in our entire country live in rural areas, many of which
depend on agriculture and agriculturally related sectors.”

Looking at the issue of employment, agriculture remains the strongest sector
in terms of job absorption. According to Stats SA’s March Labour Force Survey,
the agricultural sector employed an average of 22,1% of the Province’s labour
force in 2004 a percentage that far surpassed the mining and manufacturing
sectors which recorded 9,8% and 10,7% respectively in the same year.

The question of empowerment to the historically disadvantaged, particularly
the poor, remains a serious challenge. In my previous policy and budget speech,
the Department promised to pursue this thorny issue with vigour. To date there
exist a Draft Transformation Charter for Agriculture whose primary purpose is
to serve as guideline to empowerment in the sector. The Department, together
with national, conducted three consultation workshops in the Province with the
view of canvassing more inputs before finalising the AgriBEE Charter. One must
indicate that our people participated fully and made invaluable contributions
during those sessions. This is highly commendable.

It is our vision to make that farmers to be proud and to be part of our
celebrations of the ten years of the existence of our Constitution, which as a
legal framework, remains a beacon of hope and a source of inspiration to all
South Africans.

As I have already articulated in my Policy and Budget speech, for the
realisation of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA) we should address the challenges of both the first and second
economies which include amongst others:
* the reduction of unemployment levels drastically
* making large investment through public-private partnerships
* the acceleration of infrastructure investment in the urban and rural
areas

We have identified 10 agricultural sub-sectors which we believe have the
potential and opportunity for the packaging of anchor projects. This
involves:
* soya beans
* macadamia
* sugarcane
* essential oils
* livestock
* grapes
* apples

For this commodity –based approach to work efficiently and effectively, the
Department is engaged with the process of consultations with municipalities and
farmers organisations, local structures and business sector. The purpose is to
ensure that these organisations work together in their local level to formulate
Local Agricultural Development Plans with a view of drawing a Provincial
Agricultural Development Plan not later than the end of June 2006. To fast
track this process the Department is deploying extension officers at
municipalities to assist in the process of identification of land for economic
development, settlement and agricultural purposes.

In conclusion I will cite the Former President Nelson Mandela in his address
to on the 49th ANC National Conference. “Yet inherent to our approach to
changing society is that we should ensure broad consultation. The more thorough
the planning process, the better would be the final product; the less likely
for us to commit fundamental errors; and the more lasting changes. Ours is not
a programme of quick handouts; but one for serious and lasting
transformation.”

Thank you

Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
30 May 2006