Free State Agriculture (FSA) chief executive Gernie Botha has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa and government to create a conducive environment for agriculture to thrive and the economy to grow.
Botha is among the agriculturists who spoke to Food For Mzansi ahead of a meeting between Ramaphosa and farmers on Friday in Bloemfontein. While the president is set to speak on the impact of load shedding on the agriculture sector, his address is two days before the ANC’s 111th anniversary celebrations in the city.
The meeting – to be held at the offices of the Free State department of agriculture and rural development – comes hot on the heels of Ramaphosa’s re-election as ANC leader. He recently also survived a vote to start impeachment proceedings against him over a parliamentary report that said he may have broken anti-corruption laws by keeping undeclared sums of dollars at his farm.
Food security threats
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa’s visit to the Free State comes as the province is engulfed by not only Eskom power cuts, but infrastructure challenges with roads generally being in a dilapidated state.
“Load shedding is high on the list of impediments. Like other sectors within the economy, agriculture is also reliant on infrastructure,” said Botha. “Infrastructure like roads is essential for the farmer to transport produce to markets and to obtain the goods necessary for production, like fertiliser, animal feeds and others.
“Not only the farmer is reliant on accessible and roadworthy roads, farmworkers and their families are also in need of road infrastructure to, inter alia, travel to schools, towns, shops, [and] mobile clinics to attend to health-related issues and, obviously, for the police to ensure a safe and secure rural environment.”
Botha said Ramaphosa needed to address all factors threatening food security.
“We are also concerned about the high crime rates affecting the rural sector and urge the president to ensure [this] is given high priority. The sector is responsible for production to ensure enough food on the table. The current crime situation impacts on safety and security as well as the economic wellbeing of the sector and is not conducive to optimal growth.”
Political grandstanding?
Meanwhile, Free State grain farmer Phaladi Matsole added that urgent government intervention was needed because the agriculture sector was bleeding because of load shedding.
“We hope the president will tell farmers about measures to be taken to end load shedding. It is a threat to food security, safety, jobs, and the economy. It is important that the president tells us what the government is going to do with this energy crisis,” he said.
Although Ramaphosa’s address will be on the energy crisis, Matsole hoped that other matters of importance would also be mentioned.
“Finalisation of the land expropriation bill and its implementation… We need to know how far that is. Rural communities’ safety and road maintenance plan, government’s plan on mitigating the high costs of production inputs… We need to know government’s readiness to implement the agro-processing policy and its bias towards previously disadvantaged farmers,” he said.
Reggie Nkambule, a maize farmer in the province, does not believe that Ramaphosa’s meeting with farmers will be meaningful. “I think it is just to stage political theatrics of the ruling party ahead of their birthday. I do not see this government having a serious intention to address the energy crises in this country.”
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