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 20 000 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.
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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 workshops which 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.
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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.
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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.
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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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