ARC, OBP & NAMC 2023/24 Annual Performance Plans

Meeting report

Agricultural Research Council 2023/24 annual performance plan and budget allocation

The ARC said its medium-term strategic focus priorities for 2019-2024 were:

• a capable, ethical and developmental state;
• economic transformation and job creation;
• education, skills and health;
• spatial integration, human settlements and local government; and
• a better Africa and world.

Cross-cutting focus areas included women, youth, people with disabilities and climate change.

External environmental analysis

The significant slowdown of the largest economies was due to the significant disruption of activities and trade caused by the invasion by Russia of Ukraine. South Africa’s seasonally adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 1.6% in the third quarter of 2022. Agriculture was one of the main drivers of the growth, including banking, transportation, manufacturing and mining. The agriculture industry also expanded by 19.2% between the second and third quarter of 2022. There had been a rise of 22.3% compared to the third quarter of 2021. The ARC also spoke about the climate emergency.

(Please see slide five of the presentation for further details)

ARC’s involvement in Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan (AAMP)

The ARC has been involved since 2020 in the development of the AAMP, and continued to play an active role in the process, together with other state-owned entities in the sector. The ARC supported pillars one, three, four, five and six.

(Please see slide seven of the presentation for further details)

Internal environment analysis

The ARC focused on expanding its international footprint, strengthening local partnerships and looking at the ten-year scientific publications review. Furthermore, it would also look at the institutional review and implications, human capital management and the drivers for research and innovation.

(Please see slides eight and nine of the presentation for further details)

Areas of delivery

• Outcome one: Increased agricultural production and productivity

The ARC focused on developing crop technologies and information dissemination. A number of field trials were held in the Western Cape, Northern Cape, Limpopo, North West, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng. There was also a focus on animal improvement services and a number of farmers participated in this scheme nationally.

• Outcome two: Sustainable ecosystem and natural resources

The ARC was focused on natural resource management. A number of field trials were held in the Western Cape, North West and Gauteng.

• Outcome three: Improved nutritional value, quality and safety of agricultural products

The ARC was focused on broadening the food base, and a number of field trials were conducted nationally.

• Outcome four: Skilled and capable agriculture sector

There was a focus on skills development for smallholder farmers and providing support to them. Postgraduate students were supported, and farmers were trained. There had been a number of technical assessments for commercial readiness. A number of smallholder farmers participated in the Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo (KyD) training scheme. This was happening in various provinces.

• Outcome five: Enhanced resilience of agriculture

There was a focus on climate-resilient resolutions. A number of field trials had been held in North West, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.

A number of critical issues informed the annual performance plans.

(Please see slides 10-12 of the presentation for further details)

Financial Overview

Mr Abdul Carim, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), ARC, took the Committee through the financial overview. He said there was no significant increase expected in the parliamentary grant over the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF). An aggressive marketing programme and support of the Department would see an increase in external income generation. The ARC remained under pressure to cover the cost of personnel under the continued trend of rising inflation and interest rates. It would continue to improve its control environment, governance and the strengthening of its internal financial controls to ensure that an unqualified audit outcome was achieved.

(Please see slides 13-20 of the presentation for further details)

Onderstepoort Biological Products 2023/2024 annual performance plan and budget allocations

Ms Rene Kenosi, Chairperson, Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) board, said that the annual performance plans aligned with the goals set at the beginning of the MTEF. There was an exception, because the processes had to be streamlined and controls had to be tightened, so 13 new indicators were added. A majority of the indicators spoke to optimising the priority process and having a capable, ethical and developmental organisation.

Production in the OBP still remained the biggest challenge. It was currently in discussions with the private sector for contract manufacturing. The private sector would be able to assist with production until such time as the freezer dryer had been commissioned, along with the vector-proof facility. There had been an improvement in stakeholder engagements which had sparked positive outcomes. The ARC had embarked on an organisational design process, where it had completed job evaluations and benchmark exercises. The next step was placement.

There would be a review and approval of finance policies, because most of the policies were last reviewed between 2013 and 2018. The current challenges were water and electricity, and the board was currently discussing how to address them. Five key areas were identified in March 2022 for managing genetically modified products. This was a matter of urgency, and the genetically modified products roadmap had recommenced, albeit running parallel to other aspects. On the one hand, it was about continuing with the genetically modified products, and on the other, it was about finalising other aspects, including litigation.

Mr Luvuyo Mabombo, Interim Chief Executive Officer, OBP, took the Committee through the entity's presentation.

Medium term strategic focus priorities for 2019-2024

The OBP’s priorities were a capable, ethical and developmental state; education, skills and health, and a better Africa and world. By implementing the medium term strategic focus, the government would factor in the interests of women, youth and people with disabilities.

The OBP was trying to protect the national herd by strengthening South Africa’s animal traceability system, managing the use of unregistered vaccines, broadening the communal animal vaccination coverage and strengthening the regulator.

(Please see slides 6-9 of the presentation for further details)

Risk analysis

The first issue was sustainable financial growth. The key risks included fraud, corruption, an ineffective sales and marketing model, inadequate costing model, discounts etc. The risk mitigation included investigating and reporting fraud and corruption to the authorities, and reviewing the current marketing, costing and discounts model.

The second strategic outcome was optimised business processes. The key risks included production inefficiencies, unreliable equipment, and supplier and customer concentration. The risk mitigation included strengthening OBP's engineering and maintenance capacity to establish and implement preventative measures, and to replace or repair the infrastructure and equipment.

The third strategic outcome was improved customer service. The key risks included unavailable products and reputational risks. The risk mitigation included exploring investment into the product dossier.

The fourth strategic outcome was a capable, ethical and developmental organisation. The key risks involved adequate human resources capacity, a poor policy and governance framework and poor internal controls. The risk mitigation included ensuring skills transfers and aligning the training skills to skills developments within the current job profile.

(Please see slides 10-12 of the presentation for further details)

Financial sustainability

OBP planned to increase its sales revenue to R280m, and had submitted four new products to the registrar. It also developed four improved technological processes, and eight product dossiers were submitted to new potential markets. The OBP planned on increasing its earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation by 6%, and increasing the vaccines sold by 15% annually.

Continuous improvement of business processes

OBP planned on improving its production efficiency annually by 83%, and aimed to achieve 35% of the genetically modified products' roadmap and improve the facilities thereof. It also wanted to improve year two of implementing the board-approved enterprise architecture plan. It was seeking approval for the vector-protected facility from the Department.

Customer service

OBP was planning on completing a customer and stakeholder survey, along with solving 80% of the customers' complaints. The plan was to retain at least 80% of the top 20 customers. Six new distribution channels and ten new distribution points would be established. It planned to train 1 800 farmers. There would be 18 media publications that would be disseminated via the different media channels to external stakeholders.

Governance and leadership

Staff turnover should be maintained at less than 5%. The objective was for 100% achievement in implementing all the recommendations and outcomes. Furthermore, 80% of the planned interventions against the workplace skills plan would be achieved. All the corporate policies would be reviewed annually. A leadership development programme and an ethics and governance framework would be developed and approved.

(Please see the rest of the presentation for further details)

Discussion

Ms C Visser (DA, North West) said she was a farm girl. She had grown up on a farm and lived around different kinds of animals her whole life. Her father and grandfather had farmed with animals and OBP was very well known among the people. If anything happened, there was always OBP. What she had heard today had made her very concerned. She had heard the plans, but asked where these plans were ten years ago. Why had these plans not been utilised, implemented and rolled out before? These plans had not been rolled out, and now it was sitting with a crisis. They could not wait for all these plans to start working. It was a crisis when it affected the existence of people. There was a 78-year-old man in the Eastern Cape who lived in the mountains. His only mode of transportation was a horse, of which he had seven, but all seven had died. There was no veterinary facility nearby where he could find an OBP vaccine for African horse sickness. There were many diseases such as foot and mouth disease (FMD). This was a big crisis for meat producers and everyone working with animals.

OBP had also become non-functional and was not able to meet the demand to keep the animals alive. The problems at OBP were affecting the livestock community, because it was losing quality and this would affect food security in the future. The government could no longer allow this situation to continue, or to ever happen again. There was no excuse. It had been ten years. She said ten million bluetongue vaccines for sheep were needed immediately. The sheep should already have been vaccinated a few months ago. The horse crisis started last year.

She said there must be something better than just a plan on paper. There must be a plan where people could phone tomorrow, and medications and vaccines are already available. The country could not let 300 quality horses die. The owners could not get these medications. OBP must get its act together and help farmers and meat producers.

Mr N Masipa (DA) welcomed the presentation, and agreed with what Ms Visser had said. She had articulated the frustrations that were out there really well. Regarding the delivery of vaccines, people were saying that it had gone from few vaccines to no vaccines at all. This must be a concern for OBP.

He congratulated the ARC for winning the top employer award. This was good for them going forward. It was with good intentions, but a lot of work still had to be done. He asked what the ARC's resource contribution was to the functioning of the AAMP. The ARC was struggling to generate income. How was it going to ensure that it sustained itself while it was contributing to this master plan? The FMD facility had been in process for ten years. What were the timelines? No timelines had been given on when this process would be completed.

He asked about the competency of diagnostic services, because there was an issue with water quality that had been raised before. How was the ARC helping in this regard? Water quality has been an ongoing problem for farmers. The ARC should help to ensure that rivers are clean. Drought conditions were expected for the next year or two. How was the ARC helping to prepare farmers to deal with the expected drought conditions? Mitigation plans should be there. He emphasised that the ARC should provide assistance to farmers.

He welcomed the message from the Chairperson of the OBP, because it was starting to contact the private sector to begin manufacturing vaccines. He asked if this included manufacturing vaccines for African horse sickness and bluetongue diseases. These were the vaccines for which there was a dire shortage in the marketplace. He was aware that it had been said that there was no problem with the private sector manufacturing vaccines. The government was not stopping the private sector from doing so. The problem was that the African horse sickness and bluetongue disease vaccines were held only at the OBP. This was what the private sector was pleading for. He was also aware of the outsourcing insofar as the FMD vaccine was concerned. Why was it so difficult to make it available to the private sector to manufacture these vaccines on behalf of the farmers? He suggested that OBP could enter into a legal agreement with the private sector but at the same time, the farmers should also be getting vaccines.

He said that Ms Visser had covered the shortages of the vaccines really well. The CEO of the OBP had also clearly articulated the relationship between OBP and the Department on what was happening on the ground. However, the farmers on the ground and veterinarians were not enjoying those kinds of conversations, and were not receiving the kind of support needed. The ARC should communicate about the vaccines and the problems with the farmers. Vaccines were being bought from Botswana but the question was, who was procuring these vaccines -- OBP or the ARC? What were the prices it was paying per dose? At what price was it sold to the veterinary services?

He asked for more details on the new products at the OBP. Would they be for local or international supply? Who was doing the training of farmers? What kind of capacity was being used? Was the training being done by OBP, or was it being outsourced? He said that when oversight was being done, the Committee did not see this happening. The ARC budgeted for things such as field trials and technical reporting, which were taking longer than its previous achievements. Why was it lowering the targets that they had set compared to the previous targets?

Mr S Matiase (EFF) said that both organisations had a very instructive purpose, vision and mission. The OBP's purpose, vision and mission were to provide innovative and disruptive solutions for animal health. The ARC said its purpose, vision and mission were to conduct research, develop partnerships and human capital, and foster innovation for a sustainable agricultural sector. He had been in the agricultural environment for a very long time and had not heard anything about a collaborative partnership between the two organisations. Was there an existing collaborative partnership to meet their purpose, vision and mission? These organisations' existence was meant to meet common purposes. Were there any collaborative initiatives or projects between the two organisations with universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges? He had not heard anything about the development of human capital. Did the organisations know how many veterinarians specialised in agricultural training were being produced annually?

He said when oversight was done in Mpumalanga, there were fewer than 30 veterinarians, and in Limpopo, there were fewer than 13 veterinarians. The country must be able to deal with all the diseases like rabies and FMD. The Committee was aware that vaccines for FMD were coming from Botswana. The country did not have the capacity to produce these vaccines. Were there plans in place to get this capacity to respond to the diseases?

Responses

Mr Litha Magingxa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), ARC, thanked Mr Masipa for the top employer accolades. He said that it related to the ARC’s determination to create an environment where it had top performing specialists who could contribute to taking not only the ARC but the agricultural sector in the country to the right place, right at the top. It had learned a lot of things through this exercise. The ARC was taking this as a process of developing and improving the organisation.

The AAMP was really about aligning resources. There were benefits for the ARC in improving its working relationships with the Department. It had recently concluded a very broad service level agreement with the Department, where resources were being made available to the ARC to enable it to achieve the objectives of the agricultural sector. This would be done through some of the projects of the Department by using the available capacity of the ARC. There was a very close working relationship for the mutual benefit of the entities, as well as supporting the agricultural sector. The financial overview indicated that this was properly provided for, and the ARC would be able to deliver on it.

Dr Nthabiseng Motete, Group Executive: Crop Sciences, ARC, said that while the water quality standards and guidelines were set by the Department of Water and Sanitation, the ARC was an organisation with a portfolio on water research within the natural resources programme. The ARC did comment on this whenever such information was published for comment. It contributed to the determination of the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS). As far as services were concerned, the ARC had scientists and technicians available to provide measurements and determine the water quality. However, these were paid services. The ARC was able to assist only those who were able to pay for the services and for the available technicians on call. The scientists did intervene to interpret these results.

As far as intergovernmental collaborations were concerned, the ARC supported the work of the DWS. In the different commodity associations, it had a goal to make contributions to resources and to deal with issues that may arise. She gave an example of the food industry value chain round table, where a specific segment was working on resources, and the issue of water was there as well. The ARC did contribute, but it was still the mandate of the DWS. The targets were determined based on research contracts that were in place at the beginning of the planning cycle, which was demand based. She said that if the request was higher than anticipated, the ARC would still be able to provide these services. These numbers were based on the projections that the ARC had.

She spoke about the projections of the climate outlook, and said that there was a work period of four years which was probably the first since 1951. It was almost coming to an end. There was an expectation that dry weather would be settling in in the western parts of the country by June. The ARC was still working with farmers on the drought conditions. In terms of preparedness, the ARC was still spreading awareness, along with information and solutions. There were things like drought tolerance, scientific research and other services to limit the crises and diseases during these climatic conditions. The ARC was trying to be ahead of what the programme would normally be. It was working in anticipation, which was part of its 2025 long-term plan for research, development and innovation. She said there was not enough time to provide all of this information, but the ARC was willing to provide additional information if requested.

Mr Magingxa said additional information could be provided if Members had follow-up questions. He said that the ARC did its work mostly in a partnership fashion. There were collaborative partnerships with academic institutions and research councils in South Africa and abroad. The short and medium focus was strengthening or expanding African continental relationships. This was one area that the ARC could benefit more from. He gave an example of tapping into working with smallholder farmers.

The ARC was working with universities, and there was co-supervision with students to publish together and to share research facilities. Services were also provided to professors and lecturers. An ecosystem allowed this flow of knowledge and capacity across these institutions. The ARC was constantly improving on this on a regular basis. It was also part of the conversations about increasing the output of animal health professionals, of which there was a shortage in the country. There was a drive in the country to have an additional faculty at one of the universities to produce these professionals across the spectrum. There were approximately 3 200 veterinarians in the country, but only a fraction (216) were employed by the state. About 115 animal health professionals were produced annually. These were not necessarily animal health professionals that worked on domestic animals, but it would depend on where the interest and resources lay. Some may choose to specialise in large animals like cattle and goats.

It was not only because the ARC had a strong animal health portfolio, but it was also involved in increasing the output of animal health professionals along with housing eight world animal health laboratories for animal diseases for economic purposes. The ARC was in a unique position as an organisation. This number was higher than in some of the developed countries. The ARC had a role to play, and was involved in improving the capacity of the country.

The Chairperson asked the Department to respond to the earlier questions about the National Treasury regarding the ARC's funding. How was the ARC using its upward trajectory in peer-reviewed publications to attract public funding?

Mr Mooketsa Ramasodi, Director General (DG), Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), said that it had gone to National Treasury for funding for the ARC. The ARC had also gone along with the Department to state its case. It was working closely with the ARC and had identified five areas of incorporation which were directly funded by the Department through a memorandum of understanding. This was done to ensure the Department’s research objectives did not suffer. Currently, there is a good working relationship between the Department and the ARC. It was trying to resolve all the challenges the ARC faced from a budget perspective.

Mr Magingxa said that there were partnerships across the world to assist the ARC in generating external income. There were research contracts that generated external income. This allowed the ARC to participate in international platforms, where its work could be recognised. The ARC was participating in major international platforms and sharing its knowledge. This benefited the entity in terms of publications and generating external income. The research contracts were used to reinvest in the research objectives of the ARC.

The Chairperson afforded OBP the opportunity to respond to the questions raised by the Committee.

Ms Kenosi said that Ms Visser had pointed out that for ten years, nothing had been happening, and now all of a sudden, there were these beautiful plans. She said this resulted from maintenance and battling to produce vaccines. It now had preventative maintenance plans in place. In the past, supply chain management (SCM) service providers had been appointed to fix the equipment. In reality, this was specialised equipment and came mostly from Europe. Over the years, the equipment had broken due to wear and tear due to not receiving the appropriate maintenance. The operational side of the business, over and beyond its production, had also been in a state. There had been no senior management previously. The people who came into the organisation now came from the private sector, which was daunting. These people also had to familiarise themselves with the organisation. The private and public sectors were different. In the private sector, one could just take money and buy something, and not worry about procurement processes. This was not an excuse -- it was just the way that it had been. The OBP was trying to fix all of this whilst it was running. A lot of the issues seemed to be operational, but without them, the organisation would not be able to function.

There had been a second attempt to find a suitable manufacturer for the OBP. The first one failed because the service provider failed the assessment. The OBP was now negotiating with a different service provider, alongside the Minister and the representatives from the Department. It was not giving them any of the OBP strains, but it had identified the top five vaccines including the African horse sickness and bluetongue, for service providers to assist in manufacturing them on behalf of OBP for a set period of time. She emphasised that this was still a negotiation, and that the introductory session was held in July last year. This information has since been revisited. Whether the service provider would produce the vaccine was still unclear, but it had visited the OBP site. The service provider was impressed with the equipment of the OBP because it used a similar one in its environment. So, whether the service provider would assist the OBP was still being discussed.

Mr Mabombo said that OBP had been seen as a brand that produces trusted vaccines worldwide. He had heard what Ms Visser had articulated before, and it was something that did hit the OBP. Biosecurity was not as neat and tight as it should be. The OBP was not regulator, so when there was an African horse sickness outbreak, it found out only when the horses were dying. He said that this was the case in the Eastern Cape. As a result, the OBP had been working with the provincial veterinary offices in the Eastern Cape to deliver vaccines, and they could use them when there was an outbreak in the area. The OBP did not see the outbreaks proactively, and this was something that the system should be looking at. Consistent participation could help the OBP to hear about these outbreaks upfront.

He said contract manufacturing was all about generic biomanufacturing and involved intellectual property. There was now potential litigation regarding some of the intellectual property that had been stolen from the OBP and the ARC, which was going to come out soon. Although contract manufacturing was a thing, one had to protect intellectual property. The Department contracted the OBP to source the FMD vaccines for the country. At the moment, it was sourcing the FMD vaccine from Botswana. This was a stopgap measure to upscale the FMD vaccines in the country. Provinces were not reaching out to the OBP directly to source the FMD vaccines from Botswana. He said it would be more effective to source this vaccine from the ARC than Botswana. However, he was not a scientist, but he did look forward to ARC being able to produce the FMD vaccines for the country and the African continent.

The costs of the vaccines from Botswana and selling price to veterinary offices in South Africa have been shared in response to this question being raised in 2022. The response could be retrieved and resubmitted to the Committee.

The farmers did get trained by the OBP, especially those in the red meat industry. There was evidence of this, because the farmers signed registers. The OBP would go to the farmers, sponsor them, train them on the vaccines, and so forth. This was currently the only model that the OBP had.

A memorandum of agreement between the OBP and ARC facilitated sharing facilities for research and technologies. If it were not for the ARC and the OBP, the country would not have blood vaccines, so there was a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and both the ARC and OBP were bound by it. It also made provision for a steering committee to ensure that there were deliverables. In the past, the steering committee had not been active. There was a schedule now for quarterly meetings. The chairpersons of both the ARC and OBP had committed to meeting at least once a year. There were postdoctoral students from the National Research Foundation who it trained over a three-year cycle. There were partnerships with the University of Free State, the University of Pretoria, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of North West, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. There were projects with institutions of higher learning.

The Chairperson thanked the ARC and OBP, and asked for the next presentation.

National Agricultural Marketing Council 2023/2024 annual performance plans and budget allocations

Mr Angelo Petersen, Chairperson, National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) board, apologised on behalf of the CEO, who could not be present due to a stakeholder visit in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

The role of the NAMC was, in short, to gather intelligence and advise the Minister on agricultural marketing, to be a trusted commentator on economic affairs affecting the sector, and the collector of levies. What the NAMC had seen in the global environment had been negative insofar as the agricultural sector was concerned. There had been increased import costs, leading to increased food prices. This was something that the NAMC had been monitoring. Locally, there was the issue of the energy crisis. This had been exacerbated by the logistical challenges that the players in the food industry had to endure at the ports, which had not been as efficient as they should have been to be world class and competitive.

The NAMC was now focused on being more impactful. It had to make a greater impact on the work it did, its research, its collaborations and making linkages. It had moved away from focusing on legacy issues. It was now ensuring that it was able to create an environment where it advised the Minister on world class agricultural practices and policies. This was what it would take forward.

Ms Schalk Burger, Senior Manager: Statutory Measures, NAMC, took the Committee through the NAMC’s strategic mandate and objectives. He said that the AAMP pillars were aligned with the NAMC’s strategy.

NAMC’s strategic outcomes

• Programme one: NAMC delivers on its mandate and core functions

This programme aimed to ensure that the NAMC functioned optimally through effective business processes, corporate governance and resource support services. The outcome was for the NAMC to deliver on its mandate and core functions. It had achieved all of its targets for programme one, which included an unqualified audit report per financial year, 100% budget spend, achieving human capital levels, corporate communications and information communication technology (ICT) services targets in the operational plans for each financial year.

• Programme two: A viable and efficient agricultural sector generating optimal earnings (domestic and international).

The purpose of programme two was to provide quality research outputs to stakeholders in support of agricultural marketing, trade, policy advisory and statutory measures implementation. This programme consisted of statutory measures applications, submitting reports to the Minister, approved trade remedies, value chain research, advisory reports, investigations, status reports on the agriculture industry trusts, transformation reports on interventions funded through trust funds and levies, and approved market intelligence reports to the Minister and directly affected stakeholders.

(Please see slides 10-12 of the presentation for further details)

• Programme three: Enhanced market access for the agricultural sector

The programme aimed to design market access models to increase market access, encourage new business development, and build capacity for farmers and agricultural businesses. The output was to increase the number of farmers accessing market opportunities.

The NAMC also provided its strategic risks and mitigations. The strategic risks included inadequate capacity to support core functions and a negative audit report. A further risk was the possibility of providing incorrect or inadequate advice to the Minister and directly affected stakeholders or groups.

Please see the rest of the presentation for further details

Discussion

Ms Visser asked what was being done in terms of the Citrus Growers Association partnership. There had been a complaint about the citrus growers industries asking the President to intervene in the ongoing trade impasse between South Africa and the European Union over the new regulations. According to the media, some fresh producers and dealers were colluding on food prices in the market. The Competition Commission intervened and conducted an investigation. Had the NAMC been contacted due to the possibility of violating the Competition Act?

Responses

Mr Burger said that the administrative measures of the industries were a struggle, because there were a number of hurdles, such as the railways and load-shedding. The Citrus Growers Association was currently by far the biggest collector of statutory levies -- they collected over R250m to perform a number of functions for the citrus industry. The NAMC itself was not directly involved in the obstacles affecting the export market. It was aware that the industry must not make available price information. The Competition Act made it clear that when collecting and returning information, the collectors of the relevant data or statistics must receive individual information from the role players and then process the information. It had been said that processed information would be released to ensure that the dealings by the industry were aligned with the Competition Act.

Mr Peterson said that the citrus trade issue was dealt with via the Department -- it was not within the mandate of the NAMC. If a request was made to do research, the NAMC would do so with guidance from the Department. Similarly, with the Competition Commission -- it was the Agricultural Council that dealt with the local markets. There were times when the Competition Commission did ask for the input of the NAMC.

Follow-up questions

Mr Matiase said that oversight had been conducted in Mpumalanga and other provinces, showing that most small scale livestock and crop farmers were complaining about the lack of access to markets and infrastructure. These small scale farmers were able to work the land and animals, but they did not have access to the markets to sell their produce. What was the role of the NAMC in creating an enabling environment for small scale farmers to access these markets? Had it played such a role, and if so, was there any evidence?

Mr Masipa said that NAMC had played a key role in developing the AAMP. There were challenges with load-shedding and the new European Union regulations. Had the NAMC done some work to determine, under the current market and economic conditions, whether the AAMP would go ahead smoothly or not. Had work been done, or was it just business as usual -- as if there were no challenges, threats and issues around the country and the globe?

Responses

Mr Peterson said that small scale farmers were an area of focus for the NAMC. It was trying to link the small scale farmers to the markets. The area that had to be covered was wide. This was done not only by the NAMC, but also by the DALRRD and provincial departments. There was some evidence, because there were reports on what had been done in the past. This information could be shared with the Committee. Linking the small scale farmers to the market was the only way that they would become more sustainable.

As far as the AAMP was concerned, it was certainly not business as usual. A lot of focus had to be put in for it to move forward. The NAMC’s role was to monitor and evaluate this. There had been a number of engagements with stakeholders on the AAMP. There were challenges with energy, ports and logistics that were not working. The commodity organisations were working on those challenges, and the NAMC was also part of the relevant forums.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson thanked NAMC for its responses, and the Department and all the entities who took time to appear before the Committee. The Committee noted the presentations that were made.

The meeting was adjourned.