Question NW2970 to the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development

Reply:

Since 2004, following the closure of the Agriculture Credit Board (ACB), the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development developed the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) to ensure that the class of post-1994 farmers received the support that will enable their growth within the agricultural sector, since structures that existed pre-1994 had been privatised and the support that was available for small scale farmers were not within reach by these new class of farmers and beneficiaries of land reform. The CASP became a platform through which farmers, particularly previously disadvantaged farmers, could get access to the following:

• training and capacity building;
• production inputs;
• on-and-off- farm infrastructure support;
• mentorship and business development;
• market access support; and
• extension support and advisory services.

For the CASP pillar on training and mentorship, a total of 79005 small holder farmers were trained in various skills programmes across the nine provinces. An additional 3 275 farmers were provided with mentorship.

A number of further support programmes were later introduced to support rural farmers and communities to harness opportunities and grow within the agricultural sector, including the following:

• Ilima/Letsema programme aimed at supporting rural communities and vulnerable households to produce their own food and rehabilitate irrigation schemes.
• Land Care programme which is aimed at protecting the land, minimizing degradation and teaching communities to care for the land.
• Recapitalization and Development Programme – which aimed at accelerating productive land reform farms by stimulating production and maintaining the infrastructure on these farms.
• Land Development Support aimed at commercialising land reform farms.
• Presidential Employment Stimulus support: The Department has exposed over 146 000 subsistence producers to technology as part of supporting these producers with agricultural inputs. All these applicants submitted support applications via a paperless platform and used the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), for the first time in the country.

The Department continues to supply agricultural inputs to Subsistence Producers through the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES). Currently a total of 36 895 subsistence producers are receiving input support in respect of crops and livestock. The lead commodities are fruits and vegetables at 42% support; 33.4% livestock, 17% poultry and 6.9% grains. It is encouraging to observe that subsistence producers, even in the most remote and rural areas of the country, continue to utilise technology in these PES processes.