Minister Senzeni Zokwana announces a joint project with Statistics SA on producer/farmer register

It is with great pleasure that today I am announcing a project by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) assisted by Statistics South Africa as a service provider with expertise, on the establishment of the Producer/Farmer Register (PFR), which will run from 2018 to 2021.

As the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries we have asked StatSA to provide us with services in embarking on a process of statistics collection of commercial and non-commercial farmers.

The statistics on commercials farmers will be collected through a Census of Commercial Agriculture (COCA) and statistics on non-commercial farmers will be collected through Producer/Farmer register. Whilst the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will collect data on non-commercial farmers, Statistics SA is collecting data on commercial agriculture on behalf of the Department.

The 2018 State of the Nation address by the President highlighted the importance of the agricultural sector in economic growth within the value chain, and the preservation of food security to reduce poverty and sustain the country. In pursuit of this task, it is critical for government to have reliable statistics and information trends about agriculture, forestry and fisheries as sectors to inform better planning and decision making.

The establishment of the Producer/Farmer Register for South Africa is going to address the following areas for the sector and the country:

  • To improve the inaccurate and misrepresented statistics of famers in the non-commercial sector in particular the Small holder farmers across the country. 
  • To have a basis from which the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (AFF) sector performance can be measured in the non-commercial sector.
  • To enable development of indicators in line with Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) and National Development Plan (NDP). These indicators will help in identifying progress in achieving government outcomes.
  • To accurately identify small holder farmers in terms of their geographic distribution and agricultural activities.
  • To establish an up-to-date frame of reference for conducting agricultural sector surveys in the country.
  • To track the impact of agricultural support amongst beneficiaries in agriculture and development of strategies to help producers overcome the challenges related to natural and unnatural disasters. 
  • And to account for beneficiaries in agriculture who are entitled to support services. 


This Producer/Farmer Register is going to be an important database for government. StatSA is therefore assisting Department through their expertise in handling the Census of Commercial Farmers.  The Department will be handling the Producer/Farmer Register guided also by the expertise from StatSA. This two-phase project has been endorsed and supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Agricultural sector is an important contributor to our GDP and its impact was evidenced by its bailing out of the economy from technical recession in 2017.

It's poor performance this year has affected the country’s economy with GDP figures reflecting the economic distress.

As government we have a duty to make interventions and other forms of support to the sector so that it performs maximally and continue to grow.

I want to appeal to all our Smallholder producers and Farmers to register during this process. Our Extension Officers will be approaching Smallholder Producers and Farmers and I am urging them to open their gates to allow this project to succeed. Related to this is our request for Producers and Farmers to volunteer the relevant information they have which is necessary for this project.

We want to emphasize that this registration project has no link to the current discourse around expropriation of land without compensation.

Thank you.

For further information please contact:
Ellen Matsei
Director for Statistics and Economic Analysis 
Tel: 012 319 8454
E-mail: DSEA@daff.gov.za

Khaye Nkwanyana
Director: Media Liaison
MLO.daff.gov.za
Cell: 083 952 9723 

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