Address by the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Mr Sihle Zikalala during the launch of the Multi-Planting Season held at the Odidini Sports Grounds in the Umzimkhulu Local Municipality on 23 October 2020
Programme Director;
Leader of Government Business and MEC for Economic Development Tourism and Environmental Affairs Ms N. Dube-Ncube;
MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development, Ms B Sithole-Moloi;
Mayor of Harry Gwala District, Cllr. ZD Nxumalo;
Mayor of UMzimkhulu Local Municipality Cllr. M. Mpabanga;
Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders Inkosi P Chiliza
Traditional Leaders in our midst;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good Morning!
Food security month
Exactly a week ago, South Africa joined the rest of the global community as we celebrated World Food Day, which is an occasion to highlight the plight of the estimated 870million around the world who go to bed without food.
Let us always bear in mind that the right to food is entrenched in Section 27:1 (b) of the country’s Constitution. The task of our government is to support vulnerable communities towards the development of sustainable livelihoods and to bring the marginalised into the centre of economic activity. Research indicate a decline in multidimensional poverty as a direct result of interventions by government since 1994.
It is clear that the plight of the undernourished in our communities indicates the extent to which we as a people care or do not care for the most vulnerable members in our society. It is no accident that most of the people who go hungry are to be found in the rural areas of the world and where their main source of income is agriculture.
We meet at a time in history where the agriculture sector has been affected negatively by a number of crises such as global warming, the rise in the adoption of biofuels, and most recently, the Covid19 pandemic.
Proclaimed in 1979 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which is an agency of the United Nations, World Food Day heightens public awareness of the world food problem which afflicts almost every part of the world. The following year in 1980, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which declared that "food is a requisite for human survival and well-being and a fundamental human necessity".
In line with this international declaration, since 2014, South Africa has marked October as “Food Security Month” with the main objective being to shine the spotlight on the plight of those who are hungry in the country. It is on this day that we join in solidarity against the problem of hunger and its attendant factors which are malnutrition and poverty.
As government, we use these days as an opportunity to strengthen our resolve to end hunger, by among others, promoting food production, by improving the participation of rural people especially women, in the agricultural economy. It is also a day on which we focus on the use of research and technology for the development of food production systems that are environmentally friendly and sustainable.
Purpose of today’s event
Programme Director, the aim of today’s launch of the Multi-Planting Season is to heighten public awareness of our government’s programmes that are aimed at reducing and eliminating hunger in KwaZulu-Natal. We believe that there can be no end to hunger unless the majority are able to produce their own food by tilling the land with their own hands to achieve food security.
We should not have people going to bed on an empty stomach while there is land lying fallow and underutilised in KwaZulu-Natal. As government, we stand ready to assist rural communities in their strides to make the land productive.
If we succeed in developing a thriving rural economy and make agriculture profitable and fashionable, we can arrest the negative effects of urbanisation as we see with people, especially the youth, migrating from rural areas to towns and cities in search of better opportunities.
For a province like KwaZulu-Natal, land is our precious gold whose full potential is yet to be fully harnessed.
We must fight the forces, including hunger and poverty, which seeks remove and uproot current and future generations completely from the land.
We must work together and build awareness that land is the primary source of food security. It is also deeply attached to our identity, our rituals, and our dignity.
According to the Agricultural Policy Action Plan, food insecurity remains a challenge for the country, especially at local household levels. The problem is especially acute in deep rural areas because rural dwellers tend to pay higher prices for stable and other foods, even while there may be under-utilized arable land nearby that could in principle be meeting at least a share of local food needs.
With a record of 18.6% (a reduction from 24% in 2016) as per the 2017 General Household Survey (GHS) by Statistics South Africa, KZN is amongst the provinces with the highest proportions of households that reported inadequate access to food above national average of 15.8%.
In 2018 our provincial government called all stakeholders to the ground-breaking Agriculture Summit which adopted the historic Agriculture Master Plan. Together with the Poverty Eradication Master Plan, this is a clear articulation of the role that agriculture can play in ensuring food security and economic development.
To support growth in the sector, we announced the adoption of Radical Agrarian Socio-Economic Transformation (RASET) which aims to open the agricultural value chain to the majority through a series of steps and programmes that are driven by black people.
We have also announced set asides which will see women getting at least 30% of ownership of the new agriculture assets over the next five years. Certain commodities are set aside specifically for women and designated groups. By 2024, we aim to have 50% of government spend on entrepreneurship for women-owned and women -led business. Our aim is to ensure that at least 40% of land to be acquired under the Rural Land Reform Programme will target 40% youth by 2024.
Goat farming and support for agriculture
Programme Director, goat-farming occupies an important place in the lives of our families whether we are in the rural or urban areas. It is therefore surprising that this important animal, which is also used during many cultural rituals, has not been commercialised sufficiently by the very people who make use of it every day.
It is in this context, that we have directed the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) to develop a goat farming value chain strategy. The strategy seeks to support primary production and to inculcate the commercialisation of livestock farming among black rural producers. As government, we will also continue to provide support of auctions of rural livestock with a view to placing value on stock in the hands of the community.
We concede that in order to fully commercialise goat farming among the previously disadvantaged, we still need to roll out a massive and comprehensive marketing strategy which promotes awareness of the value of goat meat both for domestic use but also for the growing international market.
The corona-virus pandemic and national lockdown has amplified the need for more and more families to re-cultivate the old habit of growing our own food. According to a baseline survey conducted during the lockdown, it was established that food produced from homestead gardens was completely inadequate to meet the household requirements during this crisis.
The closure of schools during the hard lockdown also exacerbated food insecurity for children of the poor who could not benefit from the School Nutrition Programme. Coupled with a decline in household income because people could not work, placed great pressure on the affordability and accessibility of food in many homes. We are very aware that this situation is still with us and even more acute with the announcement that more than 2 million South Africans joined the ranks of the unemployed recently.
There can be no doubt that poverty and food insecurity are deep-seated in South Africa. They emanate from the race-based system of apartheid which relegated black people to townships and unproductive reserves in the rural areas. The system removed people from their land but also alienated them from seeing the soil as a source of life and wealth. As a result there are simply too few people who generate their own food and income from agriculture. In fact, most people get their food from shops and supermarkets and are therefore vulnerable to the escalations of prices, climactic change, and disruptions in international food supplies.
A battery of programmes are being rolled out this year including the development by DARD of the KwaZulu-Natal Agriculture an Agro-Processing Master Plan. This Plan will be used to stimulate production within the sector while focusing on the on six prioritized commodity value chains. These are Sugarcane; Fruit; Vegetables; White meat and pork; Red meat Grain, and Cotton. We encourage you to learn more about the strategy and so that you can position yourselves as we develop and grow our agricultural economy.
A significant and bold intervention of the sixth administration has been to establish five mega-nurseries to produce seedlings and fruit trees. Seedlings and fruit trees availability provides a ready and steady supply to the farmers at the right time and in appropriate quality and quantities.
This will help address the skewed structure of the economy by ensuring that the historically disadvantaged individuals participate in the seed and seedling value chain and will be a boost of the rural economy.
As we announced in the SOPA, a budget of R30-mllllon was set aside for the initial phase of agricultural infrastructure, equipment and operations. We undertook to employ no less than 290 agriculture graduates and despite the lockdown, implementation of the plan has commenced in earnest.
The planting season in context
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ANC-led government has an interest in supporting and capacitating individual and small scale farmers so that they can fully participate in the mainstream economy.
In the country’s Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2019-2024, government made the commitment to plant 1million hectares over the five year period. The achievement of the national target depends on the work that we do as a province.
We are thus launching the Multi-Planting Season to provide much needed assistance to resource-poor farmers. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, to unite with the land, and achieve the agricultural revolution that our Province has been yearning for over many decades. This is the time to develop the vast tracks of underutilized land and enable our rural communities to take part in the entire value-chain of agriculture.
The multi-planting Season Programme seeks to ensure:
- The provision of extension and advisory services;
- Promote the Land Care programme;
- Fencing of crop and grazing lands;
- Establishment of irrigation programme;
- Livestock watering projects (Dam scooping and drilling of boreholes);
- Commercialisation of smallholder enterprises;
- Investment in research and technology development;
- Provision of veterinary services:
- Establishment of small-scale mushroom projects;
- Supporting households with fruit trees as part of the promotion of dietary diversity.
Under this programme, and over the past five years, DARD has supported 135 494 households. If we assume that each household has 3,8 people in KZN, then the provincial government was able to support about 514 877 beneficiaries over the five years from 2015 to date.
This year we plan to have an additional 21 277 households to receive food security-related support. By the end of this financial year, the number of households supported (over the six-year period) will be 156 771, which translates to 595 729 beneficiaries. This is anchored on the Mechanization Services programme which supports the government’s commitments towards poverty alleviation, food security and local economic development.
The planned total number of hectares to be planted for the current financial year, 2020/21, is 20 938 ha. This planting season will benefit 11 641 people. The target is to support about 61% of women and about 8% youth.
Furthermore the programme will give opportunities for BBBEE Level 1 SMME’s to provide mechanization services. The early procurement of production inputs is now being properly synchronized so as to minimize delays in the commencement of the planting programme.
The inputs were procured in March, delivery took place at the same period and was completed in the first quarter. The Inputs which includes Seeds, Fertilizers and Chemicals, are sufficient to cover a total area of approximately 20938 hectares. This translates to 22.8% increase in the target from the previous financial year.
The uMzimkhulu project
Owing to Budget cuts caused by Covid-19 this year the Multi Planting Season Programme has been reduced by R18,308,00. This means that at the average cost of R4000 per hectare, the total cost of servicing 20188ha excluding eThekwini and Ilembe Districts, is approximately R80,752,00.
Over the 2019/2020 Season, the Nyangwini project we visited today received assistance from DARD with the Cooperative receiving Mechanization and Agricultural Inputs for the planting of 140 ha of dry beans. The Cooperative managed to plough and plant 110 ha of maize with the income they generated from the previous season. They used tractors and implements which were handed to them through the Communal Estate Programme. With this project we want to:
- Develop production skills for the participants;
- To produce grain crops that will be sold to generate income and alleviate poverty levels within the community by producing fresh and quality crops;
- To create employment opportunities for youth of Nhlangwini and surrounding villages;
- To develop production skills for the participants by conducting trainings and demonstrations;
- To develop production skills for the participants;
- To provide nutritious food to the community;
In the long term we want to encourage the development of graduates who are small scale farmers to become commercial food farmers. We want young people to show interest in Agriculture so that in the end we can upgrade the overall standards of living for the community by exploiting the productive potential of agriculture.
Already this project is generating income and has created 3 new permanent jobs and has benefitted at least 88 people.
Of these, 30% were men, 51% were women, and 3 %youth.
We have chosen Harry Gwala District for this launch because this district has the highest number of hectares scheduled for planting for the current financial year. The second largest hectares to be planted will be in the Zululand District which has 3 500ha. Subsequent to the Provincial Launch, DARD will hold District Launches which as per Cabinet resolution, will be led by MEC District Champions between now and the end of November this year.
Conclusion
Since 1652, South Africa has gone through many wars led by our traditional leaders in defence of our land, identity, dignity and freedom.
The anticolonial struggle was later led by the African National Congress and other political formation. In 1955, South Africans from all walks of life adopted the Freedom Charter and vowed that in future, the land will be equitably shared among all the people who work it.
Our democratic breakthrough in 1994 gave us the promise that the impoverished masses of our country will be united again with the land that they were alienated from.
Government continues to work hard to achieve land reform and land restitution. You would have heard about
In the February 2020 State of the Nation Address, His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the state will release 700 000 hectares of land to enhance black participation in Agriculture. And on 1 October 2020, Minister Thoko Didiza, announced that government is ready to release this land. We encourage all the people of KwaZulu-Natal, in particular women, the youth, and people with disabilities who are keen to be farmers to apply for this land. Twenty one (21) farms measuring approximately 9307 hectares have been identified for this land reform process in KwaZulu-Natal.
Last week, President Ramaphosa announced a bold and ambitious South African Reconstruction and Recovery Plan to rebuild our economy and create jobs. The plan announced by the President will be advanced mainly through infrastructure development.
As KwaZulu-Natal, we have welcomed it as we believe that it will accelerate the implementations of the strategic projects such uMzimkhulu Dam which will provide people of Harry Gwala District and Ugu with water.
Let us unite and stand against criminals who stand in the way of infrastructure delivery in our province in the name of ‘radical economic transformation’. KZN fully is at the forefront of implementing radical economic transformation, and we will not allow criminal elements to sabotage the dreams of many law-abiding and poor people of KZN. Equally, let us fight those who destroy public assets in the name of service delivery.
We want to see more women benefiting from our empowerment programmes because the economic emancipation of women will go very far to defeat sexism, patriarchy, and the shameful scourge of gender based violence.
Let us put agriculture at the centre of the revival, growth, and transformation of the KZN economy!
As we do so, let us not lose our guard on the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. Let us remain vigilant and adhere to social distancing, wearing of face masks, and hand hygiene.
And Together Let Us Create Our Common Future!
Together, Let Us Grow KwaZulu Natal.
