The key to success in the agriculture and land affairs hot seat is to partner farmers and agri unions and focus on turning individual small-scale operations commercial.
“Liewe Lulu” has reached her sell-by date. During her term in office she consistently put her foot in her mouth. There were the periodic allegations against farmers for illegal evictions without once providing any proof, then her story about a turnaround and improved credit rating at the Land Bank. Most recently there was her “joke” about land prices. Farmers who thought Thoko was a bad minister are probably wishing for her return. Even Derek Hanekom fared better. Now there are rumours that may be on his way back to agriculture.
Whoever gets the agriculture and land affairs portfolio gets one of the hottest seats in the Cabinet. They will have to balance the political aspirations of the electorate with job creation and food security requirements. But too much emphasis on transformation may result in higher food prices and food shortages. There are vacancies in the agriculture department that have existed since 1994. The minister would do well to visit the Reserve Bank and talk to Tito Mboweni, to find out how they managed to maintain the level of performance achieved in the bad old days. If you can’t find the ideal employee in the previously disadvantaged groups, get someone from the currently disadvantaged group. They will do a good job and be less likely to job-hop. The new minister’s second task will be to regain the confidence and cooperation of the commercial agricultural sector, including the agricultural unions, Agri SA, Nafu and TAU SA. Without the farmers’ help and cooperation, all the nice-sounding empowerment strategies are doomed.
Former agriculture minister Thoko Didiza made a habit of not attending important meetings even when she was the keynote speaker. And when she did attend a meeting, it was regarded as newsworthy in itself. The new minister should get a good PA to schedule the meetings, so that when they’re expected somewhere, they actually pitch up. Don’t use the farming community as a handy scapegoat. The majority of farmers are not anti-everything, but rather pro-SA. With their help, we can grow the agricultural sector and at the same time increase representation. Internationally it’s become clear that the only way to develop emerging agriculture is to work with individual small-scale farmers and help them to become commercial farmers in time. Stop thinking about agricultural projects and start focusing on individual farmers. In most cases, grandiose projects are doomed for the simple reason that individual beneficiaries can get more for themselves if they take the project’s produce and sell it. Communal ownership needs a high level of commitment to the goals of the communal project. It works in Israel, but the chances of it working here are very slim, with the exception of a few religious groups like the Elim community in the Western Cape.
So kill all grandiose schemes immediately, and when consultants pitch up with plans to put millions of hectares under a specific crop or to develop a 10 000-head dairy farm, the only answer is an emphatic no. The Department of Agriculture’s mentorship programme seems to be working reasonably well. Commercial farmers have the skills to help new farmers and there’s a lot of goodwill between commercial farmers of all colours. Cash in on this and use it to get new farmers on the road to economic empowerment. It seems as if the 30% target for the transfer of agricultural land is cast in stone. However, as TAU SA pointed out at their 2007 congress, the Department of Land Affairs doesn’t have a breakdown of the total land we have – so how will we know when we reach 30%? An audit is urgently needed.
Unity on the international scene
Bi- and multilateral trade agreements will determine South African agriculture’s role in the international economy. Negotiations take place between government officials, but the agreements are detailed on a product-specific basis, and officials don’t have product-specific knowledge. Other countries include representatives from different producer groups in their official trade delegations. The minister should force their negotiating teams to do the same. Agricultural industries don’t expect government to pay for their attendance at the WTO and other meetings, but they don’t want to attend them as second-class citizens, lumped with all the other NGOs. t’s fashionable to enter into trade agreements with everyone, but often there’s no sense in them. Who wants a free-trade agreement with countries like Switzerland, with their high level of producer subsidies? In closing, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling’s poem If: if you can do all these, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, my minister.
Dr Koos Coetzee is an agricultural economist at the MPO. All opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect MPO policy.
