This was according to DA leader Helen Zille speaking at a press conference at the Nampo Harvest Day in Bothaville. Zille said that when she put people into positions, she looked at their competence and skills: “It’s not just technical knowledge that may be needed, but good relationship-building skills and how these things are managed. I would not choose the current incumbent.”
Zille said that agriculture was both art and science and was vitally important to the country.
“Africa is a continent with arable land, and if we are ahead with technology, knowledge and the ability to transfer skills, the continent will open up for us,” she said.
Zille added that she had seen machinery at Nampo which convinced her that SA was indeed on the cutting edge of technology.
Referring to the issue of land reform, she said it was symbolic and needed to happen, but it was not the DA’s policy to take productive farms and hand them over to claimants.
“We suggest that if people have a legitimate claim they should first get access to state land. There is fertile land along the east coast, some of which is currently beginning to produce [under emerging farmers], but there are millions of potentially productive hectares growing no food and providing no jobs.”
Zille said the situation could be turned around creating a win-win scenario in which jobs were created and food security was assured.
“In the Western Cape we do not have many land claims. What we do is share schemes on farms.” In this situation, for example, a farmer would apply to the national fund to buy a neighbouring farm and go into an equity share scheme with his workforce. “So the expertise is already there on the land. These schemes have about a 70% success rate, and they allow farm workers to become farmers in their own right.”
Zille said that if there were legitimate claims on efficient, productive farms, the farms should remain productive after transfer had taken place. “We are opposed to the current system where land is leased for five to 10 years and there is no tenure.”
Grain SA CEO Jannie de Villiers thanked Zille for visiting Nampo, saying that although government ministers had been invited, they had not attended.
Louw Steytler, chairperson of Grain SA, said that any dialogue with politicians could help with agriculture’s vision to achieve a stable environment without entertaining Zimbabwe-style land grabs. “SA will be ungovernable without food security,” said Steytler.
