The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson welcomes the continued funding and support for employment projects relating to fisheries and increased support to smallholder farmers.
The Finance Minister, Mr Pravin Gordhan, articulated these pronouncements during the 2013 Budget Speech.
Currently, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Forestry (DAFF) supports smallholder farmer through the comprehensive agricultural support programme (CASP) for infrastructure related support and the MAFISA programme for production related assistance.
The department will be able to enhance its services to include assistance to women and youth cooperatives. To date, DAFF has been able to mobilise 12280 women into 489 cooperatives. A further 591 young farmers mobilised into 37 cooperatives to take advantage of economies of scale. Thirty-three women dominated cooperatives have benefited from CASP to the amount of R7 million and youth cooperatives were also supported through CASP to the tune of R826 000.
"Today's speech demonstrates that our government is serious about eradicating the challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty alleviation. The national development plan has identified the potential of agriculture to create a million jobs.
The message, in the fisheries and agriculture sectors are very welcome and will enable us to extend our programmes and to enhance the work we have began."
