DAFF pledges support for smallholder farmers to promote food security

Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Senzeni Zokwana promised much support to smallholder farmers in his budget vote address.

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Over the next five years government will direct much resources and energy to support smallholder and subsistence farming in order to promote food security. This was according to minister of agriculture Senzeni Zokwana and ANC MPs during the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ (DAFF) budget debate in Parliament yesterday (16 July).

Rosina Semenya, ANC MP and chairperson of the portfolio committee for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said government’s plans to address household food security would rely on increasing subsistence farming through the establishment of household food gardens and greater support for smallholder farmers.

Government’s aim to increase support to smallholder farmers was reflected in DAFF budgetary allocations.

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To assist smallholder producers Zokwana said DAFF would transfer a significant portion of its budget to smallholder farmer support programmes including CASP, Ilima/Letsema and LandCare.

The total budget allocated to DAFF for 2013/2014 amounted to roughly R6,7 billion and about 35% of this has been assigned to agricultural support programmes.

CASP has been allocated R1,861 billion (a portion of which would go towards the Fetsa Tlala food security initiative), R460 million has been earmarked for Ilima/Letsema and R67,8 million for LandCare.

However, during a press briefing to discuss the budget vote address, Zokwana said that smallholder support could not be provided indefinitely.

“When you support [smallholder] farmers for three years they should be able to reach a point when they will be able to farm sustainably on their own,” he said.

Chief whip of the DA, John Steenhuisen, told Zokwana that the goals DAFF wanted to achieve would be unattainable without “a proper partnership with commercial agriculture, farmers and farm workers alike”.

Steenhuisen said achieving national and household food security in South Africa would not be possible in the long term unless the uncertainty around land reform was addressed.
“Commercial farmers will not invest in more modern technologies and crops unless certainty is created in this sector,” he said.

Certainty could only be guaranteed, he said, by achieving greater synergy between the land reform department and DAFF.

“It is not tenable to have the minister trying to create calm and certainty amongst commercial agricultural stakeholders while his counterpart in rural development and land reform is destabilising the sector.”

Zokwana responded by saying that “as government engages in transformation, it must be done in a way that does not create panic in the [agriculture] industry.” He said DAFF’s object was to make sure an environment was created for co-operation with everybody in the sector.