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Ministers, Premiers, business leaders and other South Africa's Who's Who will be treated to a taste of South Africa's best indigenous foods when Pietersburg in the Northern Province hosts a gala evening to open a Provincial Food Fair on Friday.

The Provincial Indigenous Food Fair is a success story resulting from government initiatives to alleviate poverty. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology funds a series of initiatives to be rolled out throughout the country.

This Provincial Indigenous Food Fair represents an important milestone in an innovative project aimed at the promotion and commercialisation of South Africa's indigenous skills, which is currently underway by the CSIR Technology for Development.

The project aims at having a major impact on the alleviation of poverty in rural areas through enhancing the skills of the rural women in food preparation of indigenous foods to stimulate sustainable and profitable small to medium business enterprises, to foster job creation and to empower women to contribute to the economic and social development of the country. It provides a niche market for the women, which also gives the emerging farmers a competitive advantage over big and established farmers. The targeted markets are the hospitality industry, tourists and supermarkets.

At the Gala evening, the best dishes in the province will be identified. The purpose of this function will be to introduce indigenous foods to the urban population and get feedback from them on which dishes they would like to see in their shops and restaurants. Although the project is in its pilot stage and fairs being held in KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Northern Province, the intention is to extend to all nine provinces. The project encompasses the full chain of activities required to bring a new product onto the market. These include the identification of potentially commercially viable dishes, provision of technical expertise in the packaging and processing of the product and the setting up of support centres to ensure that a viable supply chain is in place.

"Ensuring continuity in the supply and marketing of the crops involves many crucial aspects," says CSIR Project Manager, Tshidi, "including organising and assisting local farmers in producing and cultivating the new indigenous crops, sourcing of technologies to increase their production and improve their quality and the strengthening or establishing of agro-processing in rural areas."

Tshidi continues, "Marketers also need to be identified in the province to market and sell the products locally, while the establishment of local trade houses will use, amongst other things, information and communication technology to enable the new enterprises to access information to market their product on the Internet."

Another considerable benefit of the project, which is being sponsored by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), is its potential contribution to promoting tourism - a major growth area for South Africa.

The Indigenous Food Fair will be attended by a representative for DACST, Ms M. Pyoos, Adv Ngoako Ramatlhodi, the Premier of the Northern Province, and the MEC of Agriculture of the Northern Province, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi.

The project is being run in a number of phases starting with the identification of suitable dishes within the districts to compete at provincial level. Selection is done through the local women's groups, in five categories namely, cereal, vegetables, fruit, beverage and snacks; and the entrants are expected to prepare indigenous dishes using available resources. A recipe book will also be compiled from the winning dishes, with the royalties from any sales being paid to the women who participated in the development of the recipes.

Enquiries: Patsy Redelinghuys at 012) 841 3412/4836

Issued by: CSIR Technology for Development and the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, 15 November 2001