The Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, MP is further extending the validity period of COVID-19 Disaster Agricultural Support Fund Voucher to 30 September 2020.
Initially the vouchers had a validity period of 30 June and the Minister extended it to 31 July 2020. These extensions emanate from supply chain disruptions on the availability of production inputs caused by COVID-19, which negatively affected farmers ability to redeem their vouchers, delays in the printing of vouchers and non-availability of some production inputs in the market.
The Minister acknowledges that all provinces have almost distributed all approved vouchers to farmers and most of them have redeemed their vouchers.
“I have noted that there are still challenges on the ground being experienced by both farmers and suppliers when it comes to the availability of some production inputs such as day old chicks and seedlings as well as errors picked on some vouchers which relate to incorrect ID numbers, incorrect allocation of production inputs,” said Minister Didiza.
The Minister had also instructed the department to identify applications that were erroneously disqualified and to make sure that they are provided with production inputs.
“I have considered all these challenges and decided that it would be prudent to extend the validity period to 30 September 2020 to allow suppliers to build adequate stocks of production inputs and farmers to redeem their vouchers,” said Minister Didiza.
Further information on the extension of the validity period and names of more than 14 000 successful applicants will be available on the departmental website: www.dalrrd.gov.za, as soon as possible in order to encourage transparency.
For media enquiries please contact:
Media Liaison Officer Mr Reggie Ngcobo
Cell: 082 883 2458
