strategy
11 May 2006
One of the commitments undertaken at the Provincial Growth and Development
(PGD) Summit held on 14 November 2003, was that strategies should be developed
for certain key sectors of the Western Cape economy. One of the key sectors
thus identified was the agricultural sector including its forward and backward
linkages. Background work between the four social partners, which are
government, business, labour and civil society, for the process started soon
after the elections of April 2004.
As part of the subsequent process the main issues were refined into the
following eight themes:
a) Land reform and agricultural Black Economic Empowerment (BEE)
b) Human resource development, social and farm worker issues
c) Competitiveness in agricultural marketing, market development and market
access
d) Infrastructure
e) Research and development (technical and economic)
f) Extension and farmer support
g) The natural environment, food safety and food security
h) Institutional development
Within each of these themes a number of specific concerns were identified
and the context (in terms of threats, opportunities and desired outcome) of
each concern was defined. Furthermore, for each of these concerns specific
action plans, responsible parties and means of verification were developed. In
total 90 different action plans were developed.
After the formal signing of the agreement the next phase of the process will
be implementation of the agreed-upon action plans. As each of the partners has
assumed responsibility for certain actions, the steering committee are being
transformed into an interactive and monitoring mechanism. In this way the
momentum of consensus building created in this sector with its own unique
interactions will not be lost.
The final agreement will be released during a business breakfast on 12 May
2006 at Lord Charles Hotel, Somerset West and registration will be at 07h00 for
7h30.
RSVP to Mishka Abrahams at (021) 808 5191 or email:MishkaA@elsenburg.com.
Enquiries:
Dr Dirk Troskie
Cell: 082 658 6018
Alie van Jaarsveld
Spokesperson
Tel: (021) 483 4930
Fax: (021) 483 3890
Cell: 084 604 6701
E-mail: avjaarsv@pgwc.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Western Cape Provincial
Government
11 May 2006
