Eastern Cape Premier Ms Noxolo Kiviet will on Thursday, August 16, 2012 open the Sustainable Rural Development Eastern Cape (SURUDEC) Conference at the Osner Hotel in East London.
Surudec, the EU and Office of the Premier initiative which has spent close to 3 years being involved in rural development in the province, is to holding a conference this week, to talk about the lessons which they, together with their partners, have learnt in rural development since its establishment and which draws to a close in December 2012.
The international speakers are also due to speak on Thursday. Friday should be equally interesting when the Eastern Cape experts take to the podium. These include RULiv CEO Mkhalelwa Mazibuko, rural development expert John Allwood, Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council economist Mike Lewis and IDC's Stuart Bartlett.
Also part of the line-up on Thursday is Alfred Xulu, chairperson of the Amangcolosi Community Trust in KwaZulu-Natal, who will talk about its enormously successful sugar cane and timber farming venture. The community trust, which owns Ithuba Agriculture Pty Ltd, relinquished dividends and hired an experienced farm manager while they built up their company and developed strong leadership.
Today the 8000 ha farm land at Ithuba is divided into commercial rain fed sugarcane, timber, maize, kiwi fruit, chillies, and leather leaf fern (used in floristry). A total of 430 community members are employed at Ithuba with approximately 400 of those employed being direct beneficiaries of the land.
Speakers from further abroad include Dr Alan Terry from the University of the West of England (he is talking to Swaziland's Komati Downstream Development Project and the country's programme to transform subsistence farmers into commercial farmers and its impact on multi billion rand programme) and Killian Taurai Mutiro from Zimbabwe (he is talking to Zimbabwe’s protracted relief programme).
Contact: Manelisi Wolela
Cell: 083 626 0304
For enquiries contact:
Tobile Gowa
Cell: 082 440 6995
