Question NW2971 to the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development
22 September 2023 - NW2971
Matiase, Mr NS to ask the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development
What are the relevant details of the forms of support that her department has provided to small-scale peasant family farming in rural (a) KwaZulu-Natal, (b) Limpopo and (c) Eastern Cape?
Reply:
The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) has two interventions that directly support production at a subsistence or household level, i.e. Ilima/Letsema and the Presidential Economic Stimulus (PES).
- Ilima/Letsema programme is aimed at supporting rural communities and vulnerable households to produce their own food and rehabilitate irrigation schemes. Since its inception in 2008, the Ilima/Letsema programme has supported 1 572 952 (one million five hundred and seventy two thousand nine hundred and fifty two) beneficiaries to produce their own food. The support includes starter packs for household, schools and community gardens, mechanization support as well as production inputs.
a) KwaZulu-Natal: 2022/23 financial year: the programme has supported 4 560 beneficiaries with production inputs; 1 104 were vegetable producers, 815 maize producers, 1 300 dry beans producers, 256 goat producers and 650 red meat producers.
b) Limpopo: 2022/23 financial year: 7 960 subsistence farmers were supported through Ilima/Letsema for production of vegetables and subtropical fruits.
c) Eastern Cape: 2022/23 financial year: 22 645 households have been supported for maize and vegetable production.
- In terms of the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES) 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 support with crops and livestock inputs.
- 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 all the PES processes.