Free State MEC of agriculture, rural development and environmental affairs, Elsabé Rockman, said the past eight months since taking over the reins have been challenging but eye opening.
In an exclusive interview with Food For Mzansi news editor Tiisetso Manoko, she cited the small wins she has achieved, however, she noted that more needs to be done to take agriculture in the province to the top.
Tiisetso Manoko: What has been keeping you awake in the past few months since taking over?
Elsabé Rockman: In agriculture everything keeps you awake at night, but it has been exciting eight months. Coming into this portfolio I had no background in agriculture so it has been a learning curve. And we have been hit with anything you can think of: veld fires, snow, excessive cold, localised flooding, extreme heatwaves, [and] now we have outbreak of armyworms.
We met with the youth across the province because the department had spent R5 billion in the past five years but there was little impact. We then said we need to focus our energies on youth in agriculture and development because young people are facing difficult issues like unemployment, access to land and funding. So the past months have been about listening and acting up.
What projects are the department going to focus on in the next financial year, and what monitoring and evaluation will be used to keep track?
We have a food security problem in the Free State and we have decided that we need projects that are focused on dealing with food security. We are supporting Afasa with their 23-series programme in Thabo Mofutsanaye District and they have 500 participants on it aimed at dealing with food security.
We are also in partnership with Serdev where we will be supporting 12 cooperatives. Serdev has made land available. So we are starting to leverage from the support that is available to us to have projects on the ground and creating a different approach of partnering with stakeholders which takes us somewhere.
When it comes to monitoring and evaluations, that is our biggest challenge, I do not think there is a department that has capacity – both human resource or financial – to cover the whole province and make sure that the reporting is done. So we have engaged with the big stakeholders to create partnerships that where we are unable to have extension officers on the ground, please be our eyes and ears. Our capacity is limited; at this point we get to the project when it is already collapsed.
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What is the update with the Glen Agricultural College since it has been closed due to student protests?
It is one of our painful realities that we have significant management problems at Glen College. When we started last year, we did a tour of the facility and at that stage the college was closed also. And we identified issues that needed to be addressed and sadly, today, I can tell you none of those issues have been addressed.
We are going to be dealing decisively with the management of Glen College. We have already started conversations with national [government] before this latest student protests. I can tell you that students have legitimate concerns. We want to get the college on track in terms of accreditation, quality of learning and teaching, and practical work.
We need a reset at Glen College. We have also been engaging former students who have been saying they are ready to step in and help revive the college, and also been in talks with Free State Agriculture, Afasa, and individual farmers. We have made a call that we want to create an alumni association because previous students are so passionate about Glen College but they have been excluded.
We are sitting on an almost 5 000-hectares farm and its an unproductive farm where our students should be working on it. There will be an overhaul of the college.
What is the department doing to deal with stock theft which is a burning issue in this province?
In September last year we did a border visit with the MEC of community safety, roads and transport, and the stock theft issues are real. Whatever statistics are there are under-reported and… we have serious issues on the board. But this is organised mafias and syndicates that are driving stock theft, in the province and other provinces.
The routes are known, the auctions are known, the question is why is there nothing happening, why is there no action taken. The minister of police was here and the message was clear that the police need to step up and have the stock theft unit take action.
We need a thorough registration of branding because the fake branding is too “authentic” that you will not know the difference, but we need to deal with it in a more proactive manner.
What is your message to farmers, stakeholders, commodity organisations, and students?
Even when we started, the one thing has been that agriculture is a profession of hope, but you cannot live on hope – you need action. We need to work together [because] in silos we are not going to make this province better. We are not going to make any difference or make any impact. So we need to get over ourselves and work together besides our ideological differences.
Farmers of the Free State are passionate and they want to farm, all they want is an enabling environment.
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