At the Remmoho Investment in Agriculture Harvest Day celebration in Bethlehem, Free State, where over 300 farmers and community members had gathered, deputy president Paul Mashatile emphasised the country’s commitment to fostering the success of black farmers. He underscored the importance of knowledge-sharing and collaboration among farmers of all races as a crucial strategy for job creation.
Mashatile said this can only be attained if more people have access to land and are not intimidated by those who do not want to share the country’s wealth.
“Here we see collaboration of black and white farmers coming together to make a project a success. No one will grab anyone’s land, we only want to share the land. We only want ordinary workers to be protected and treated with respect,” he said.
Govt support goes a long way
Mashatile called on the chairperson of Remmoho Investment in Agriculture to keep doing well and use their farmers productively.
“I am passionate about agriculture and we are happy as government to see this project grow to where it is now, we want to see the entire value chain of agriculture on this farm.
“What is happening here is real progress that needs us as government to support more. All we want to see is expanding processing plants and you can be rest assured we will support you,” he said.
Pitso Sekhoto, the chairperson of the entity which focuses on apples and maize farming, said it took him 15 years to get the operation going, knocking on closed doors, and determination to be where he is at the moment.
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Sekhoto leads an R80 million project on Stead Fruit Growers farm that specialises in processing apples for the local market and exports. He said they aim to make the Thabo Mofutsanyane District lead in terms of gross domestic product in the province.
A long and hard road
“In 2017 the operations collapsed, however, three years ago I told myself that I was going to start. All I needed was government to just support; it did not need to be monetary but give me the support I needed.
“Today government is here to see how their R18 million that they trusted me with is, indeed I believe that government should be proud. Oversight visits have been done by different spheres of government and they were happy,” he said.
Sekhoto noted that in the next two years, they intend to hire 200 people, and by the end of the year plant 100 hectares of apples to increase their market demands.
“Our vision is that this district should plant 2 000 hectares of land with apples by 2027. Not only for this operation but for other farms, ours is to work together not against one another. This is a celebration and motivation to go even further. We are aiming for the Brics bloc countries as our export market, we are going big,” he said.
Message from agriculture and land reform ministers
Agriculture minister John Steenhusien said while the celebration of Remmoho Investment in Agriculture is significant, many farmers in the area need financial support to kickstart or boost their business, something he and his department intend to see.
“Our department will support and fund viable, profitable and sustainable projects to create jobs in their community. No farmers we have interacted with are asking for special treatment, they all want to be given a fair share of government support and that is what we are going to do.
“There is enough space for every farmer to participate in the sector, we need to push sharing of knowledge and partnerships. Importantly, we need to invest in young people in the sector and as well as skills development,” Steenhusien said.
Rural development and land reform minister Mzwanele Nyhontsho said while it is important to give people land, it is equally important to support people after they have attained land.
“We need to deal with the red tape of land restitution because people must have access to land. We need to create an environment that will make it easy for the people to resolve conflict on the farms they are given, especially in the communal property associations (CPAs) across the country,” he said.
Nyhontsho vowed that where there is corruption in his department, he will deal with it and if there are government officials who are caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they will be exposed.
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