1. Beekeeping Programme-ARC

In South Africa there is sub-optimal usage of honeybees for both pollination and commercial honey production. This is largely due to the historically restricted access to land for sections of the population, the lack of beekeeping technology transfer to those members of the population and the tradition of honey hunting as opposed to honey production. This project seeks to, by use of innovative and appropriate technology and training, develop optimal, sustainable and renewable usage of available floral resources, which would result in entrepreneurial development. The project will impact rural farmers (especially women), young people (unemployed, orphans and street children) and people with disabilities.

Value for money: Participants are now selling their first products. This will help them improve their living conditions.

Status of the project: The bees have been placed into hives and they will now start to produce honey. Each group will have at least 20 hives filled with bees and will havest close to 10kg of honey per box per year. 60% of the projects have done their harvesting. Honey has been produced. Participants are now helped to market their products and also improve on the quality. Participants will also be trained to produce products such as candles, sweets and cakes.

2. Hand Paper Processing Technologies (now Phumani Hand Paper Making Programme) -TWR

The project involves developing appropriate technologies to convert locally available biological resources to paper pulp, which is then converted into paper products of various kinds (the biological resources used depend on the region). It also involves training unemployed people from target communities in the use of these technologies and establishing local manufacturing facilities (craft factories) and training participants in the project in the required business skills to develop their newly acquired technological capacity into sustainable businesses.

Some of the centers have administrators and unit managers

Value for money: Jobs have been created and orders are received from companies. What follows are some of the orders for February 2002:

• Sandton Covention Centre for R3 800
• Sisters of Mary for R1 500
• JOWSCO (Company hosting the Earth Summit) for R38 000
• Ukuvuka for R862
• Flower Valley Trust for R2 800
• Egoli Tows for R1 680
• Woolworths for R30 000

Status of the Project: All are 60% done. Following are still to happen this year (2002/2003) and next year:

• Developing ranges of products for mass manufacture for WSSD
• Community facilitation: Skills and business training
• Entrepreneurial development
• Marketing and marketing mentorship on a project level
• Product development and packaging design
• Develop a needs assessment to measure impact
• Establishing Trusts for these projects

Marketing and product development continues.

The specific focus of this programme is on value addition to available local resources most of which fall within the agricultural sector. Hence most of the projects focus on processing of the animal fibres, plant fibres and indigenous foods. All of the projects have been designed to form a holistic value chain, which comprise of growing, processing, value addition and marketing of the end product. Futhermore, the process has been developed so that every part of the value chain is sustainable and profitable.

Salaries for Project Managers paid from the CSIR budget

Value for money: Jobs have been created and also local and overseas markets established. Some of the products are currently (March 2002) be sold at Rand East Show. Some of the products were displayed at the London exhibition ( the one Minister Ngubane attended)

Status of the project: 70% of the programme has been done. What is left is product development and promoting and marketing the products Training continues to help participants to run the programmes themselves.

The purpose of the project is to provide indigenous Nguni bulls of superior genetic quality to previously disadvantaged communities to improve the quality of their live stock. Such distribution is done in the Limpopo and Eastern Cape Provinces.

Value for money: Cattle farmers have genetic resources to breed stock for which there is a market demand (superior beef, hide quality, etc). Cattle farmers have also access to superior Nguni bulls with improvement on quality (calving percentage) and quality (growth, meat quality) from which to breed.

Status of the project: 70% of the project has been done. Cattle farmers will be empowered to translate their natural and livestock resources base into a capital base. When the best calves are in turn used for breeding stock, the project predicts an economically significant increase in the mass of thousand of calves born in the beneficiary communities; this will translate into substantial increase in the cash flow of stock farmers in these communities. This will also translate into improved quality and quantify of animal products being made available by the resource poor agricultural sector for processing, much of which can be done locally, contributing significantly to local economic development