Source: Wandile Sihlobo, Business Day/Agbiz e-newsletter, 24 August 2021, photo credit: africacheck.org
Expanding irrigation infrastructure, commercialising underutilised communal and reformed land (through the provision of tradable land rights), and targeted support to agricultural subsectors and regions with growth potential could all have transformed the rural economy of the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
While this may seem obvious, unfortunately those in leadership have failed to pursue this route. Consequently, economic conditions in the rural areas of these provinces remain poor, and we continue to see migration to the cities. In some cases,such migration is more expensive for the government, which has to contend with the provision of houses, education, health and social needs.
The case would have been less dire had efforts been made to transform these provinces’ rural agricultural economies.I make this broad statement not intending to underplay the role agribusinesses have played over the past decade through various partnership programmes to boost agriculture production across all three provinces.
For instance, my home province of the Eastern Cape has several such programmes, with some led by The Co-op, an agribusiness based in Humansdorp, and Wiphold, a black women-owned investment company.
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The South African Pork Producers’ Organisation (SAPPO) coordinates industry interventions and collaboratively manages risks in the value chain to enable the sustainability and profitability of pork producers in South Africa.
