On Thursday last week the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson, met the National Wool Growers Association (NWGA) in Pretoria.
The meeting was attended by the Chairperson of the National Woolgrowers Association, Mr Harry Prinsloo, Mr SK Makinana, the National Vice-Chairman, and Mr Leon de Beer, General Manager. Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and from the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform were also present.
The aim of the meeting was to inform the Minister about progress and challenges in the sheep and wool sectors.
During the meeting, the NWGA spoke about a training and development sector plan for the country, with particular focus on the Eastern Cape and its wish for more support in marketing wool through the commercial market as a means to generate better income for communal wool producers in the Eastern Cape.
It also raised its concerns about the quality and quantity of wool produced in communal areas, informal markets, infrastructure, wool harvesting, wool classing, marketing access and knowledge and information.
The Minister has committed funds to agricultural centres of learning for training and development in order to turn them into areas of excellence. The Minister said this move has been motivated by the fact that agricultural colleges will be absorbed into the Department of Higher Education as part of a resolution to reorganise their structure.
“This meeting was a great exercise and I am excited about the opportunities for job creation and development in the sheep and wool sectors. Moreover, as the department, we will look into the possibility of allowing agricultural unions to run training centres for skills exchange and training purposes. We have already identified two training schools in the Eastern Cape. During this meeting, we also discussed the strides that we have made in opening new markets for the sector. Since the intervention of government, agricultural commodity groups have seen increases in exports into non-traditional markets such as China and other African states. We are proud of this.” said the Minister.
There are more than 8 000 commercial wool producers on record. There are 846 communal shearing sheds, serving a total of 17 000 emerging and communal wool producers. These are mainly in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Free State.
“We would like to thank the Minister for working tirelessly to open a market for the South African wool industry in China. As we speak, we have seen markets double and treble, with massive growth in non traditional markets. China has seen a 48.2 percentage of free on board value on exports during the 2011/12 period. The Czech Republic and India have also seen exports of 16.0 and 15.4 percent respectively. We are happy that the Minister met us, particularly since there are over 50 commodity groups in agriculture, and she can’t possibly meet them all individually. We want to send out a message that we are happy with the interventions of the department in our sector and have experienced excellent cooperation from the officials that we are working with,” said Harry Prinsloo.
At the International Wool and Textile Organisation Congress (IWTO) conference which was held in Italy last month, South Africa was the only country whose wool sector made gains. In 2014 South Africa will host the (IWTO). From the 28 April to 01 May 2014, over 400 delegates from 25 countries will be in Cape Town to take part in the event.
