Backing KZN's emerging farmers
7 May 2003
KwaZulu-Natal's agriculture and environmental affairs MEC, Dumisani Makhaye, has announced measures to assist emerging farmers in the province.
The MEC announced a R10-million subsidy to acquire tractors and to expedite access to the use of state land by emerging farmers.
Addressing the province's legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Monday, Makhaye said the programme would help in introducing small-scale farmers to the benefits of mechanised farming methods.
He said the initial plan was to buy 200 new tractors and related implements, along with training and maintenance programmes offered by the tractor companies.
"This has since been modified by allowing for the purchase of good second-hand tractors to allow for the purchase of more equipment, which will spread the benefits to bigger number of farmers," Makhaye said.
Emerging black farmers involved in sugar-cane farming, and women running a tea estate in Ntingwe, near
Nkandla in the north of KwaZulu-Natal, will be the main beneficiaries of the scheme.
Makhaye stressed that it was important that farmers organised themselves into a collective to enable them to use their bulk buying power to negotiate favourable terms with tractor suppliers.
The Agricultural Development Trust, which will administer the programme, will be converted into a public entity to comply with the Public Finance Management Act.
"I hope to see progress in this programme in the year ahead. Mechanisation is an important part of our objective of boosting production in the small-scale sector and converting such farmers into producers of surpluses which can then be sold for cash," Makhaye said.
The Land Bank has agreed to finance the programme, and part of the R10-million will be used to build the capacity of the small-scale farmers and to establish service centres, according to Harry Strauss, the acting head of the department.
Makhaye also announced
that emerging farmers will be settled on state land or on existing commercial farm land, which will become available on a willing seller-willing buyer basis as envisaged in the Land Redistribution For Agricultural Development programme spearheaded by the national government.
"I have devised ways to finance the new farmers, to provide them with practical back-up, and to integrate them with the existing large-scale farming sector. Meetings with the financing sector, including the Land Bank, have been arranged for this purpose," Makhaye said.
Source: BuaNews
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