Both the quantity and quality of extension officers could prove a crisis for emerging farmers, according to Agri SA.
Livhuani Ngwekhulu, Agri SA’s transformation manager, was responding to a statement by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) that South Africa had a ratio of one extension officer to 800-1 000 farmers.
During a recent meeting with parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Joe Kgobokoe, DAFF’s chief director for sector capacity development, said there were about 3 000 extension officers in the country. He told the committee that the department’s plan was to work towards a ratio of one officer for every 400 to 500 farmers.
Kgobokoe said 670 extension officers had enrolled at universities last year to upgrade their qualifications. However, Ngwekhulu said the low number of officers spelt grave problems for the development of emerging farmers.
“The reason we have very few extension officers is the lack of motivation in terms of remuneration,” he said, adding that many qualified people ended up climbing the ranks in the department to earn a better salary. “Once they are in higher positions, they are no longer involved with work on the ground.”
Ngwekhulu added that lack of technical knowledge was also a problem. “Farmers I work with complain about the level of knowledge extension officers have, not the number of officers,” he said. Tshianeo Mathidi, president of the Limpopo branch of the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa, cited another challenge: the fact that the government did not have a farmers’ database. This made it difficult for extension officers to service farmers properly, as they visited only those farms that they knew about.
In addition, said Mathidi, most emerging farmers did not actually live on the farms on which they worked, and this exacerbated the problem. – Peter Mashala
