The days of non-accountability of government-funded projects are gone, said Free State MEC of agriculture, rural development and environmental affairs, Elsabé Rockman, on the first day of the two-day Youth in Agriculture Summit in Bloemfontein.
Addressing over 400 young farmers, Rockman said her department is going to establish a youth farmer register to know who is farming where and track government funding.
“We will do this register each and every year because we have too many failed projects in the Free State province. We are going to hold you accountable when you are funded by government. Do not feel victimised when we come to you asking those questions. That is the process we going to follow from this summit onwards,” she vowed.
Accountability is key
“We must start taking farming business serious and not make it an option but something that we do with passion. If government have funded cooperative projects and there is infighting, we need to know. We need to act when there are red flags, not when the project has collapsed,” she added.
Rockman said the provincial government want to ensure that young people are at the centre of making the Free State a food basket of the country and that can only happen when there is collaboration amongst farmers, commodity groupings, unions, financial institutions and the government.
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“The provincial department of public works has identified land that belongs to government, and such land is agricultural land that must be used. For us to be a force to be reckoned with in the country, young people must take the lead.”
She acknowledged that there is a need for discussions on land, especially after the signing of the Expropriation Act by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and her department has resolved to do a land summit in the next financial year.
“We cannot have land not being utilised when we have so much youth unemployed and young people wanting access to land with hunger to working the land. We are going to make it our business to get the land into the right hands,” she said.
Creating a solutions-driven platform
Rockman called on the youth to explore other commodities so that the province could trade with other provinces on different produces.
“We cannot all do chickens; we end up competing with one another instead of completing each other. Markets are there; they need us to tap into them and trade,” she said.
The acting head of the department, Tshepo Mabilo, said that while the summit outlines challenges faced by young farmers in the province, it is equally important that the youth present solutions they would like to see.
“All we are saying to the young people is that here is the platform, let us be solutions driven. We are working on launching an agri mobile app where farmers across the country would be able to engage one another outside of formal government programmes like the youth summit,” Mabilo said.
Provincial youth coordinator Thabiso Letswara said the first-ever youth summit will encourage dialogue between young people and stakeholders ranging from insurance companies, state-owned entities focusing on agriculture, and other government departments to chart the way forward for young farmers in the Free State.
“We have gathered here for solutions. The MEC last year moved around the province to listen to the young people. Now, this gathering is to say how do we move forward, how do we tap into new markets, how do we bring all stakeholders under one roof and come up with solutions that will ensure we are food secure and able to produce farmers who can sustain us,” he said.
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