African Farmers Expo and Workshop

Gala Dinner

16 August 2013

MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza

Program Director

MECs and MMC present

Acting GDARD HOD Ms Priscilla Pietersen

Exhibitors present,

Sponsors Present,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Good evening

I am delighted to be here with you for the African Farmer Expo and Workshop gala dinner during a very significant month of August when our country pays homage to the selfless and often perilous struggle of women. I am certain we all recall that it was in 1956 that over 20000 women marched on the Union Buildings, Pretoria, in protest of the inclusion of women in the pass laws that controlled the movement of Africans.

On that historic day, those remarkable women made their voices heard from the seat of the Apartheid machinery. With boldness, and their audacity of hope, they declared their opposition towards this inhumane law and system, not fearing for their personal safety or the ramification of their stance.

Theirs was a clear vision, a mission to ensure the emancipation of the African women, no matter the cost. And so today I am extremely pleased to be here as we celebrate those remarkable women, with women in agriculture especially!

Program Director, I am further delighted to deliver this keynote address to the 3rd African Farmers Expo and Workshop here at Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg. I am aware that this initiative combined with the previous two workshopswhich took place under the name of the “Black Farmers Expo and Workshop’ at the Tshwane Show grounds. I am encouraged in particular to note that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has in its endeavor of executing this function of reviving agricultural expos, an important mandate in our program of action partnered organization managed by women and young people in particular.

Such strides must indeed be applauded because this serves as an important indicator that participation in the agricultural sector is gradually becoming inclusive not only from the point of view of farmers been representative of our demographics, but also in terms of the support functions and services in this important economic sector responsible for our food security.

Let me also take this moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the sponsors of this Agricultural Expo. Our government firmly believes in the spirit of partnerships, this we believe is summed very well in our saying that “together we can do more”. It is therefore pleasing to say that this Agri-Expo is in itself a demonstration that through partnerships we are succeeding in addressing some of the challenges faced by smallholder farmers.

This includes challenges such as access to information about suppliers of various agricultural inputs, suppliers of mechanization (Tractors) and related equipment and all agricultural types of infrastructure necessary for a successful farming operation. Of outmost significance, this Agri-Expo platform creates interaction with potential buyers of the produce of smallholder farmers, a critical element in their productivity and profitability of their enterprises.

Our mandate of agricultural development in a province such as Gauteng is very much relevant today and in the future in view of the ever increasing food security pressures that our country faces. It is partly because of this challenges that Gauteng continues to be the centre of in-migration such that today we have become the province with the largest population of 11.3million out of 50million South Africans. In the same context, we cannot fold our arms and hope for miracles.

We therefore remain vigilant in implementing our programmes and initiatives of ensuring household food security, productive and sustainable farmers which are being capacitated to be able to undertake agro-processing of their produce and create jobs through the revised Gauteng Agricultural Development Strategy (GADS) linked to the Gauteng Employment, Growth and Development Strategy (GEDGS). These strategies remain significant part of our Programme of Action underpinned by the 8 outcomes that we have adopted as a province. I wish to highlight in particular Outcome 7 that is about ensuring Vibrant, equitable, sustainable rural communities contributing towards food security for all.

Program Director, we fully note that successful economic growth encompassing agriculture is centered on ensuring the interaction of various programmes and projects which work together in combination to achieve the outcome I have just mentioned. Training and mentoring of smallholder farmers to be more productive and participate meaningfully in the agriculture value chain is a fundamental aspect of our work and this agri-expo provides additional platform through the workshops that have been organized for farmers to interact with potential service and input providers as well as mentors in this particular regard.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have often heard of different statistics and percentages of farmers who are not succeeding, it is also said that most of these farmers are beneficiaries of various programs which include land reform. Tonight as we are honouring farmers who have excelled in their various enterprises in the categories of poultry, dairy, livestock, grains and fresh produce; let this be a reminder that there is excellence out there that sometimes goes unnoticed. It is all our responsibility to ensure that such a trend does not continue. We have changed gears; we have changed our course to ensure that this excellence does not go unnoticed forever.

Honourable MEC, it is furthermore our aim to ensure that success must continue to breed more success. Therefore this recognition must serve to provide further impetus and momentum to our smallholder farmers to continue striving to perform optimally in accordance with the capacity of their farms. In addition, in the coming week, in accordance with August month that I have already alluded to, we will furthermore be honouring female farmers through our Annual Agri-business Women of the Year competition.

We firmly believe that this excellence is not in isolation, but it is a manifestation of increased support that we have provided as government in addition to efforts of mitigating systemic efforts that have sought to undermine development of all farmers in particular smallholder farmers. We are encouraged as we have witnessed the competition commission dealing successfully with some of these incidences of fixing agricultural inputs.

I implore upon our exhibitors and all agricultural input suppliers to be good examples in ensuring that fair and ethical business practices in particular with regard to pricing becomes the norm.

As I conclude, Mr Program Director. I wish to congratulate winners of this year`s Gauteng African Farmers Agri-Expo Excellence in farming awards. I also wish to thank in earnest all exhibitors who are making this initiative a success as I congratulate the partnership of GDARD and Moshate Media for once more delivering a successful Agri-Expo in the course of ensuring that we achieve of objective of ensuring that agricultural expos are fully revived in Gauteng.

I thank you

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