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15 November 2005

The Minister and Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs, Ms Thoko Didiza and Adv. Dirk du Toit, together with senior officials of the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs, yesterday met with members of the Executive Committee of TAU SA to discuss issues of common interest between government and the farmers union.

Issues discussed ranged from the AgriBEE charter process, land reform and drought. It was agreed that the two parties need to establish task teams to deal with land reform challenges at provincial level. The meeting also agreed that TAU SA will engage the AgriBEE Steering Committee’s consultation processes to raise all issues and proposals pertaining to the AgriBEE charter process. TAU SA also offered to work with the Department of Agriculture on developing an appropriate strategy to deal with the drought problem facing some parts of the country.

This meeting forms part of a process of regular consultations between the Ministry and organised agriculture.

Subsequent to that the Minister and Deputy Minister met with members of the Executive Committee and senior officials of National African Farmers Union (NAFU) SA and Agri SA in preparation for an upcoming meeting of the Presidential Working Group on Commercial Agriculture.

The meeting was in agreement on the proposed agenda items for the Presidential Working Group meeting that will be held on 29 November 2005, in Pretoria. It was agreed that a task team comprising of union and government officials will work on a joint presentation, which will focus on agriculture’s contribution to government’s accelerated and shared growth initiative.

For further information contact:
Steve Galane
Tel: (012) 319 7312
Cell: 083 635 7346
E-mail: smais@nda.agric.za

Issued by: Department of Agriculture
15 November 2005
Source: Department of Agriculture (http://www.nda.agric.za)