Programme Director, Mr Victor Kgomoeswana,
Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Hon. Mzwandile Masina,
MEC for Economic Development, Environment and Rural Development, MEC Lebogang Maile,
MECs and Mayors,
Members of Mayoral Committees
Leaders of the Agricultural Industry in in Gauteng,
Farmers and Captains of the Agribusiness,
Heads of Departments and CEOs of Agencies,
Distinguished delegates to this Summit,
Ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to add my voice in welcoming you to this inaugural summit that focuses on unlocking the full potential of agro-processing and agribusiness in the transformation, modernisation and re- industrialisation of Gauteng City Region as the economic hub of our country and a leading economy in the continent.
Almost sixty years ago at Kliptown, where we are gathered today, our forebears adopted the Freedom Charter as a common programme capturing the hopes and aspirations of the majority of South Africans.
The Freedom Charter articulates a vision of a just, equal and prosperous South Africa where all our people will enjoy a better life. It has as its primary goal the restoration of pride, dignity and equality to all those deprived of such basic rights.
As they adopted the Freedom Charter those who came before us declared, boldly, among others that: “Restrictions on land ownership shall be ended and all the land shall be re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and hunger. The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers.”
Our forebears made this declaration determined that those work the land must benefit fully from it.
Programme Director, it is fitting and proper that as this generation we are back to Kliptown to take an important step towards ensuring that the benefits of working the land accrue to all our people.
We are aware that prior to this Summit workshops were conducted across the length and breadth of our province to solicit the inputs of stakeholders into our draft agro-processing strategy.
Today marks the culmination of all that work. It is an opportunity to finalise a strategy and plan of action we can all be satisfied with.
In particular, this Summit must help us take decisive action to transform, modernise and reindustrialise the Gauteng City Region through, among other sectors, unlocking the full potential of agro-processing and agribusiness.
As part of taking forward the National Development Plan (NDP), the Agricultural Policy Action Plan and the Industrial Policy Action Plan, the Summit must help us increase the contribution of agriculture to the provincial economy by strengthening our focus on value add to primary agricultural products.
The Summit must help to position Gauteng as the Agro-processing hub of our country and the entire Continent. The Summit also focus on the fundamental question of tackling hunger and famine, in line with the call made in the Freedom Charter six decades ago.
Currently, almost 20% of households in this relatively wealthy province, go to bed hungry due to lack of food security and sustainable income. This is totally unacceptable.
Ultimately, our efforts must eliminate hunger and famine by enhancing food security, ensure rising incomes for those involved in agro-processing, create jobs and enhance the competitiveness of this sector. We must promote urban agriculture in our communities so that every piece of land is used to produce food for households.
Our efforts must also result in the emergence of sustainable black enterprises and black industrialists in the agricultural and agro-processing sector. Black farmers must play a meaningful role in the entire agricultural value chain.
As we deliberate at this Summit let us be reminded that the direct contribution of agriculture to the GDP of our province currently stands at 0.4%.
However, when taking into account the forward and backward linkages in areas such as dairy products, biofuels and essential oils, grain and bakery products, wineries, breweries and distillers, meat, textiles, beverages, wood and furniture, hides and leather, agriculture contributes about 36% to Gauteng’s economy.
We are equally encouraged by studies that indicate that an initial investment in agriculture has a substantial multiplier effect on many other non-farming sectors of the economy as well as on job creation.
This, Programme Director, should strengthen our resolve to continue investing in the development and expansion of sustainable agricultural enterprises in our province.
Given that Gauteng occupies only 1.4% of our country’s total land mass our focus must deliberately shift to agro-processing.
Being home to a major port of entry and exit; the O.R. Tambo International Airport places us at an advantage to become a major exporter of agricultural products, especially processed products.
In addition, Gauteng is South Africa’s most populous province with a large urban population of 13 million people and a growing middle class. This is significant market for processed agricultural goods.
We must therefore leverage these unique competitive advantages as we seek to position Gauteng as a hub of agro-processing.
As the provincial government we have identified agro-processing as one of the strategic levers we will use to drive our programme of re- industrialisation, modernisation and reindustrialisation.
As we do our work in this regard we will also be guided by the outcomes of the sectoral study currently being undertaken by the Department of Economic Development.
The study will help us fully understand agro-processing as one of our targeted sectors; thus guiding our interventions to support this sector.
Equally, the outcomes of this Summit as well as the decisions of the workshops conducted across the province in the build-up to this Summit will also guide our comprehensive interventions to support agro-processing.
Programme Director as we indicated in the State of the Province Address last month, we decide to reconfigure the Gauteng City Region’s space and economy into five development corridors with distinct competitive and comparative advantages - central, eastern, northern, western and southern corridors.
In terms of this approach the Southern and Western Development Corridors (Sedibeng and West Rand) have been identified as our agricultural hub.
Our goal is to position Sedibeng as the food basket of the Gauteng City Region and the primary anchor of our Agritropolis; a modern city economy wherein agriculture and agribusiness play a key role.
As part of strengthening agro-processing in the Southern Development Corridor we are supporting an initiative that will benefit 32 black farmers to supply malt to the Heineken Brewery in Sedibeng.
The foot-prints of our Agritropolis will spread to the Western Corridor, which encompasses areas to the West of our province. In this regard work is already underway to leverage the region’s high value horticulture and aquaculture potential.
Programme Director, it is important that we cluster our development interventions in line with these corridors so that we can succeed in our goal of advancing economic inclusion and balanced development across the Gauteng City Region.
We reiterate that gone are the days when some regions and municipalities will be neglected as the Cinderellas on the periphery of the provincial economy.
In addition to the work we are doing as part for the Agritropolis, we will continue to prioritize the development of agri-parks on the periphery of urban settlements, which must be linked to our township economy revitalisation programme.
Work will also continue to support and expand our community and schools food garden initiatives in order to strengthen food security and to provide income opportunities for communities.
Government through its procurement spend will support school and community gardens; thus ensuring their sustainability and expansion.
Programme Director, we expect delegates to this Summit to guide us on specific interventions we can make to further enhance our work of growing the contribution of agriculture in our economy and to broaden participation in this sector.
Our interventions must be radical; they must reflect out of the box thinking and must be designed to deliver maximum and enduring impact in the shortest time possible.
In particular, we expect guidance from this Summit on innovative ways to substantially increase access to funding especially for emerging farmers who continue to battle to meet the stringent requirements for access to bank credit.
This Summit must also shine the light on how to aggressively increase the participation of youth, women and people with disability in agro processing. More broadly, it must help us facilitate the entrance of new players, in particular small, medium and micro-enterprises, including cooperatives into this sector.
It must help us deal decisively with the negative impact of monopoly domination within this sector. It must also help us strike the correct balance between land available for agriculture, industry, environment and residential purposes.
This is particularly important given the size of our land mass as well as the competing and often conflicting demands for land use in our province.
We urge delegates to this Summit to also pay attention to measures to enhance skills development, training and mentorship opportunities within this sector. Linked to this is the need to increase the global competitiveness of our agro processing industry.
Delegates must also focus on facilitating greater access to export opportunities for our processed products as well as measures to protect local produce against unfair competition from cheaper imports.
Attention must also be paid to strengthening infrastructure investment to support the development of agriculture and agro processing within our province.
Additionally, the Summit must guide us on how to use research, development and innovation to more effectively and more directly support agriculture in our province.
Issues of strengthening food safety and the quality assurance of our processed products must also receive attention. The Summit must also help us to clearly define the dynamic linkages between urban agriculture in particular and our township economy revitalisation programme.
Programme Director, we look up to this Summit to address these and many other issues so as to unlock the massive potential of agro- processing in our province as part of our fifteen year programme of transformation, modernisation and re-industrialisation of the Gauteng province.
Our vision and dream is to turn Gauteng into a globally competitive and seamlessly integrated City Region which is socially cohesive and economically inclusive; a smart province with innovation-driven and knowledge-based industries; a leading economy in the continent.
Black people, women and youth will be, at the centre rather than in the periphery, of the economy of the Gauteng City Region. The sun shall never set until we realise this dream.
I implore all you to join hands with our government to revitalise urban agriculture and position Gauteng as a hub for Agro-processing and Agribusiness in our country and continent.
The question I would like to pose to you is whether you are ready or not. Given all the interventions we are making to transform the structure of the provincial economy through macro interventions such as the township economy revitalisation and TMR, are you ready to take full responsibility for the success of these initiatives.
The state cannot do everything for you: the developmental state is only a helping hand to citizens and entrepreneurs who must take charge of their own lives and shave their own destiny.
Again, I ask: Are you ready?
We are ready to give a helping a hand but the rest you must take risk as entrepreneurs and seize opportunities.
I wish you successful deliberations.
Thank you!
