Chairperson Honourable Premier and colleagues of the Executive Council Honourable Members, Amakhosi present, Distinguished Guests, Chairpersons and CEO’s of the Commodity Associations, Leadership of KwaNalu, AFASA and OAF, Representatives of WARD and YARD, Ladies and Gentlemen Introduction: Agriculture in this province is poised to emerge from the shadows to become, as President Jacob Zuma said in his State of the Nation Address, a catalyst for economic growth.
Let me give you a glimpse into that future by welcoming one of my guests here today, Sifiso Ntshiza. Sifiso was the first matriculant from Zakhe Agricultural College to go overseas to learn the business and science of farming. This was thanks to the vision of a handful of farmers who started a project called “Future Farmers.” He is currently employed as the manager of a large, highly mechanised dairy farm in Creighton and is studying business management as he plans to own his own commercial farm one day. He is a mentor to other young aspiring future farmers.
Currently fifteen young KZN farmers are in Denmark at an Agribusiness College. They spent the past ten months there and will be returning after their graduation in June having received training in modern livestock production and running commercial operations.
They were selected from land reform farms through a project run by KZN DARD entity, the Agribusiness Development Agency. Getting young people involved in farming is one side of our plans going forward to grow agriculture in the province. The other is to unleash the potential of small-scale farmers. The biggest challenge that smallholder farmers face is the issue of economies of scale, they will always struggle to compete with their commercial counterparts and remain as they have been labelled for a long time now as “emerging farms.” It is time to create an environment to assist those who want to make the transition from emerging to commercial farmers. This means bridging the gap between the first and second economy.
Full speech [PDF]
