The Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (Casp), which funds farm infrastructure for emerging farmers, is crucial to the commercial sustainability of land reform. But it has suffered greatly from capacity constraints, resulting in gross underspending. The grant is disbursed directly from national to provincial agriculture departments. Total allocation to provinces increases steadily from R300 million in 2006/07 to R478 million in 2009/10.
Casp grants are government’s main support instrument for emerging farmers, yet in the first year of operation, spending performance was dismal. This improved somewhat in 2005/06, but some provinces still failed to spend their allocation ( notably North West, which only spent 13%). The agriculture department acknowledges Casp has been hampered since its inception by a lack of capacity, proper planning and alignment with other programmes, and long procurement procedures. I mprovement is expected by beefing up provincial capacity, streamlining procurement processes, and increasing emphasis on partnerships with commodity organisations, commercial farmers and agribusinesses. – Stephan Hofstätter
