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16 March 2006

Honourable Premier
Honourable Speaker
Honourable Members of the House
Our honoured special guests and friends in the public gallery

Introduction
The 2005/06 financial year for Limpopo Department of Agriculture (LDA) has been both an interesting experience and an eye opener for me and quite challenging from various angles.

It has been an eye opener and an experience because one had to contend and accept the conditions under which our farmers and entrepreneurs operate. It is a fact that both uncertain climatic conditions and risky markets impact on the rural economies directly. Our farmers are constantly challenged to be abreast of developments in their operations in order to be competitive and profitable. On the other hand the “hand of nature” and the manipulated global market can spell disaster for them. The larger part of 2005 has been very dry and most commodities had to re-adjust and contract to a point of shedding farm labour. This is not a desirable state of affairs. The Department provided all drought support measures it could master and a reasonable number of livestock were saved. Entered 2006, we have already received above average rainfall in the past two and half months and most dams are full to their capacity with the exception of a few in Limpopo. This intense moisture will be handy in sustaining both water sources and vegetation for the winter and the remainder of the year before summer rains come again. We are grateful to the Almighty and Our African Ancestors for these “showers” and we hope that they continue deep into the winter season.

The 2005/06 was also characterised by a number of landmark developments among them the Provincial Land Summit and Land March. The Land Summit was held under the theme “Our land, our wealth, our heritage”. This indeed underlined the fact that the land is not only a means of production and social justice but also a means of gaining wealth, prestige and power. These Provincial events culminated in the National Land Summit held in NASREC (Johannesburg) in July 2005. Issues of pro-active land acquisition, land price, land tax, willing buyer-willing seller as a mechanism for delivering land, ownership of land by foreigners and land use issues topped the agenda. These developments will yield results soon as the President mentioned during the Sate of the Nation Address.

The Draft Transformation Charter for Agriculture (AgriBEE) was released during December 2005. At this Indaba, it was resolved inter alia, that “the Steering Committee must finalise the final AgriBEE Charter in terms of Section 12 of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act, No 53 of 2004”

The national Minister, Honourable Thoko Didiza launched MAFISA in Ga-Mabintane in Sekhukhune district in May 2005. This ushered a new era in accessing financial support for our farmers for production loans. Though started as a pilot in Sekhukhune, MAFISA is now available to all farmers in the province and application forms can be found at District Agricultural offices as well as Post Offices.

In early December 2005, the National Minister of Agriculture also launched an AgriTourism framework. This initiative seeks to promote Rural Tourism, AgriTourism, and Farm Tourism in a manner that does not disturb production programmes but enhance the value of farm life and appreciation of what farmers do. Limpopo has been urged to promote key unique agricultural production and processing areas and facilities in this regard. The Department will be working with the National champion for tourism in this regard to develop and strategy and plan to implement the programme.

These are commendable milestones in the history of agricultural transformation in this country.

Honourable Speaker, I wish to register one achievement upfront. In my 2005/06 speech I spoke of “Local is Lekker” and “Nothing about us without us” approach in improving the integration and management of agriculture at the local municipality level.
I am happy to announce that the Department has now appointed 26 Local Agricultural Municipality Managers with effect from 1st February 2006 to ensure agriculture becomes a permanent feature of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP)/ Local Economic Development (LED) process. The contribution of agriculture as well as its importance as an economic development thrust will start to be appreciated from now on.

As a tradition, before alluding to the specific performance and future plans for the sector in the province, I would like to share with the House the state of the overall budget performance in relation to previous years.

In 2003/04 our total adjusted appropriated budget was R804.6 million and we utilised R786.4 million. This is equivalent to 97.74% utilisation or 2.26% saving. That was great!

In 2004/05 our budget was R905 million and our actual expenditure was R818million leaving about R87 million unused and returned to Provincial Treasury. This is equivalent to 90.4% utilisation or 7.5% saving. That was not improvement!

For the 2005/06 our allocation was R1billion. Given the performance of all programmes as at the end of February, the Department is projecting a 9% saving. This is certainly a further drop in performance from the two previous years. This is not acceptable!

Most of you will recall my statement last year when I said “The performance of the 2005/06 financial appropriation should certainly be above 97%. This is the target on which my performance must be measured in twelve month’s time!”

Honourable Speaker and Members of the House, as I stand here twelve months later, I have mitigating factors for this unacceptable situation. I mentioned in opening my “interesting experience and eye opener and unique challenges from various angles”. While I accept that a 9% under-spending is not something to be happy about, I wish to state and put into perspective some of the key factors that hampered the 100% budget spending.

Generally, the Department lacks technical planning capacity in engineering, natural resource management, research-cum-innovation and agricultural economics. This Department is mostly sustained by technical and business skills. The reality is we do not have enough of these required quality. The few that are there are overworked and sometimes not fully skilled and confident of their qualities. Remember, Agriculture is a Business! In a recent study that the external consultants did in the Department, it was found that there are more corporate services and administrative support staff than the technical and business intellectual core delivery staff. The ratio is one to one point two (1:1.2) this shows just how few people are expected to plan and think for the Department which is largely technical and business-oriented.

The second impediment is that, in recent years the Department thought it could be “everything to everybody at all times” thereby spreading thinly the very limited technical capacity. This approach saw the Department with a myriad of “minute projects” some of which needed a mere R35 000 to around R150 000 per project. The administration and management of such numerous “minute” projects does take its tall on staff capacity in both financial-cum-administration management and the technical feasibility since they are overwhelmed by the numbers. This leads to management “over-heating”, fatigue and stress related complications in an effort to satisfy everyone. This is certainly not “best management practice system”.

The Broad Senior Management Team of the Department had to revise these impeding approaches. A new budget spending tactical strategy has been devised. This new tactic that is intended to strive towards 100% spending in the coming year is based on the following:
* massification of projects
* visibility of intervention
Consolidated and integrated project planning approach (Use of Project Registration Cards) and is demand driven (from potential entrepreneurs within a locality).

The four tactics are based on the Service Delivery Strategy of the Department being: 1) Commodity Based; 2) Value Chain Analysis oriented; 3) Project Approach and 4) Local Municipality Focus. With the capacitating of Local Agricultural Municipality Management, the strategies alluded above should enable the Department to deliver services efficiently and appropriately to our targeted clients.

Honourable Speaker, while the “minute projects” will not be dumped instantly, it is the resolve of the Department that “we will look and engage with appropriate local municipality based community organisations to assist us in the discharge for some of the services that can best be done by local institutions”. I am referring here to poverty alleviation interventions.

For the year ending at the end of this month, the projected spending performance of specific programmes are as follows:
* Administration will spend about 98% of its allocation. The 2% saving is due to non-filling of vacancies and the non-completion of office infrastructure on time.
* Sustainable Resource Management will not spend 8% of its allocation due to late appointment of service providers. Two companies were appointed in September 2005 for RESIS infrastructure installation. Unspent funds will be rolled-over to maintain the impetus injected. The programme had earlier appointed 5 engineering companies that merely provided planning consultancy rather than do the actual physical work. This has been changed and RESIS’ Recharged integrates both bulk planning and in-field technology installation under one company. This, we believe will provide the impetus needed. We have also appointed three additional companies within RESIS’ Recharged to meet the delivery requirements.
* Farmer Support and Development will realise a saving of about 4% due to non-spending of Conditional Grants. Most of the “numerous and minute projects” are found in this programme and the tactical strategy outlined will apply more in this programme.
* Veterinary Services will not spend about 4% of its allocation due to savings on compensation of employees and purchase of vaccinations and dipping chemicals.
* Technology Research and Development will realise a 34% saving due to improved grazing as a result of recent rains. Most of the funds were earmarked for drought relief and these funds will be returned to Provincial Treasury for re-allocation.
* Agribusiness will realise a 1% savings due to late purchase of certain value adding technology.
* Structured Agricultural Training will save 2% due to non-spending on capital infrastructure such as irrigation systems and shade-net facilities for practical training for aspirant farmers when they come for courses at the two Farmer Development Centres, namely Tompi Seleka and Madzivhandila.

These programmes collectively constitute the projected 9% under-spending by the Department and as I said earlier, it is not an acceptable scenario. I have already outlined how the Department will turn-around the situation in the coming year.

However, there were good things that were achieved this past year. The Department won the first prize in the Premiers Excellence Awards. The Department also won the Impumelelo Award for Innovation in Cape Town. The same award also bears recognition as the first of its kind on seed technology innovation within Southern African Development Community (SADC). Locally we were rated by the media as the best in terms of application of Batho Pele principles when dealing with our clients. Lastly, the Department also received an unqualified audit report for the 2004/05 financial year.

Just to shed light on the Impumelelo award, this involves the flagship programme for research and technology on Community Based Seed Production which started in 2000 trying to address problems of smallholder farmers when it comes to acquisition of good quality seeds. To date, the project has resulted in seed multiplication of farmer preferred varieties, namely ZM 421 and ZM 521 (locally referred to as Zuzavhusiwana). Farmers, mostly women, were then capacitated to produce seeds of farmer preferred varieties in order to guarantee local seed security and to make seed production an income generation opportunity. This is empowerment and growing local economy at work. The project had earned the Farmers involved and the Department a Silver-Impumelelo Innovations Award, the prize for which was awarded at a ceremony held on the 10th of December 2005 in Cape Town.

The coming financial year has wonderful plans and projects for assisting farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs to become more involved. Honourable Speaker and Members of the House, I wish to take this moment to announce that the Department has appointed a group of eminent men and women from this province to constitute the first Limpopo Agricultural Advisory Forum. The key responsibility of this forum is to advise the Executing Authority about matters of agribusiness development and agricultural planning in all our Local Municipalities.

They will assist the Executing Authority on oversight issues and at the same time complement and support the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture on the issues already mentioned. These are:
Ms MA Morapedi, Ms I Mutsila, Ms RB Ntsanwisi, Mr KE Phoku, Mr MM Malapane, Mr AW Whitehead , Mr G Rall, Prof MS Burgers and Mr MW Muvhulawa With this kind of support, I say to our farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs this year, “Lehumo Le Tšwa Tšhemong”. This suggests that they must heavily engage and assist the Department in service delivery and lobbying for agriculture within the local municipality and traditional authority structures. Furthermore I say “‘n Boer maak ‘n plan” in Limpopo so that each one’s commitment can be notices. I am expecting our farmers to suggest agricultural development plans at a Local Municipality level that can assist in job creation, empowerment, growing local economy and arresting poverty.

The Department has reduced excess staff from 1 348 to 1 109. We further target to offload more 500 employees, due to the implementation of severance package as introduced by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) which was introduced from 1st January 2006.

The Department will place about 234 interns starting from 1st April 2006 for the 2006/07 financial year in the following specialist fields, namely, animal health, corporate services, financial management, agricultural economics, crop science, horticulture, soil science, and aquaculture, engineering and pasture science.

On Human resource development and Youth training in agriculture, the Department produced five hydrological engineers last year and all are proceeding with Honours at KwaZulu Natal University. Again the Department will receive four Agricultural Engineers and four Entomology students who are completing their studies this year.

The Department awarded 70 new bursaries for external students this year in the following fields: Agricultural Engineering, Veterinary Medicine, BSc. Agricultural Economics, Crop Protection, BSc. Animal Science, Hydrology, Horticulture, Agronomy, BSc. Soil Science, and Pasture Science. These are our scarce skills and we will continue to provide support until the shortages are addressed.

On the partnership programmes, the Department has joined hands with Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Biodiesel Technology on the biodiesel project by establishing an incubator project at Tompi-Seleka Farmers Centre of Excellence. The ARC and the Department have already signed a Memorandum of Understanding. In this regard, more than 10 000 ha of cropping land for raw material is being identified in Sekhukhune for this purpose. An amount of R3 m has been allocated for this project.

Re tla be ebile re mekamekana le Projeke ya dikgomo tsa NGUNI ye e sa tsogo lontshiwa ka kopanelo le kgoro ya Temo, IDC, Unibesithi ya Limpopo le balemi ba dikgomo tsa NGUNI go tswa Ga Kibi le Ga Sekhukhune. Projeke ye e beetswe dimillione tse lesomepedi gomme e tla gagaba lebaka la mengwaga e mehlano.

Kgoro ya temo ka kgomagano le Mmasepala wa Waterberg, e tla dira dinyakišišo ka ga projeke le go thala lenaneo la polane leo le tla tsitsinkelago dinyakišišo tsa mananeo a mangwe go t?wa projekeng yeo gona fao Seleteng.

Selaga sa Selete sa Waterberg e tla ba mohlakanelwa gare ga balemi, Mmasepala le lefapha la praebete. Lefapha la praebete le tla laola ditlabelo gomme ditlabakelo ditla rentiwa go tswa go Mmasepala.

Balemirui ba kopana le mathata a hlokego ya mebaraka le tahlegelo ya leruo ka nako ya komelelo. Go thakgola lenaneo le, kgoro ya temo e thomile ka dinyakišišo tsa projeke ye mmasepaleng wa Blouberg, koporaseng ya Blouberg Intergrated Livestock. Dinyakšišo di lebeletse go hlongwa ga bofepaleruo, selaga, sekema sa hlabollo ya dipudi, tsweletso ya maswi a dipudi le matlalo.

On household food production programme, the Department distributed production input packs to 3 788 households at the cost of R8.9m. Three categories of production packs were distributed: - egg production (layer chickens); vegetable packs with water storage drum and heifer and milk goat for milk production.

Infrastructure development on 44 micro enterprises that includes vegetable gardens and poultry, have been completed, benefiting 915 participating households. All were trained in production and basic business skills. About R14.2m has been spent on these projects. For the coming year, R8m will be allocated for infrastructure development on the micro enterprises.
The Department has reviewed this intervention strategy and as explained earlier, new tactics will be implemented this year onwards. The Department is forming partnerships with departments supporting nutrition programmes (Education and Social Welfare) and major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on collaborative efforts for funding, implementation and monitoring the impact of these interventions. R10 m has been allocated for the implementation of the support programme in line with the new approach.

During 2005 eight (8) municipalities were declared disaster areas and R19.8 m was spent in providing fodder, concentrates and re-equipping of boreholes. About 27 427 communal livestock farmers of various sizes and 723 commercial livestock farmers received aid both in the form of fodder and concentrates.

In order to mitigate fodder insecurity, the Department will establish a fodder bank as the seasonal drought conditions are expected to prevail in the second half of 2006. This condition leads to intermittent fodder flow problems for livestock farmers. This project has been allocated R5m and Tšwelopele Irrigation Scheme will form the core production area of lucerne. Long-term mitigation strategies will be developed with Livestock Commodity Groups to ensure ownership of the process.

Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) is a national effort of supporting Provincial Agricultural Departments in providing the needed support in the agricultural development beyond their allocated budget. In 2005/06 Limpopo was allocated in R42 million and with about R10 m roll-overs CASP total budget was R52 m.

This was for the development of crop, livestock and home-based food production infrastructure. By end of January 2006 the livestock infrastructure stood as follows:
* 9 dipping tanks were complete
* 81 crush and auction pens were complete.
* 515 km of fence has been completed for grazing.
* 10 stock watering projects have been completed.

The Department has been allocated R50 143 million for CASP this coming financial year. Proportional allocation is that 75% is for Land Reform projects, 10% for Poverty Alleviation projects, 10% for training and capacity building and 5% to complete the disease control infrastructure backlog in communal areas.

Despite the animal and bird disease outbreaks in other parts of the country Limpopo has maintained a notifiable disease free status. The Department has kept all minimum required vaccinations. The redline fence in the Mopani district has been repaired and is now completed. The foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control strategy has been revised and a draft has been tabled which is being considered with our partners in the industry, that is organised agriculture (AgriLetaba), national Department of Agriculture and SANParks and Limpopo Tourism and Parks Board.

Ku vile ni ti mhangu ti nga ri tingani ta vuvabyi bya rihuhu-mbyana e xifundzeni xa Vhembe.Khombo ra konaku vile ni mafu mambirhi lama ehleketeriwaka ku va ya vangiwile hi vuvabyi lebyi.Nzdawulo ya Vurimi ni ya Rihanyu exifundzheni xa hina ti le ku tirheni swin’we eku lweni ni vuvabyi lebyi naswona pfhumba ro lemukisa vaaki hi vuvabyi lebyi ri ya emahlweni ku endlela leswaku vaaki va twisisa nxungeto wa rihanyu lowu fambelanaka ni vuvabyi ku katsa ni matshalatshala yo byi sivela.

12 wa lembe hi ri eka mfumo wa xidemokrasi,ku na ntlhontho etimhakeni ta ku tlherisela misava na mphakelo wa misava hi vuntshwa ku nga ri ntsena eka rivilo leri ku fambiwaka hi rona, kambe ni le ku tshamisekeni ka mapurasi lama averiweke Vantima ni le ku hoxeni ka xandla hi vantima ebindzwini ra vurimi hi ku angarhela.Tani hi leswi 80% wa mapurasi lamakulu ti nga le ku koxiweni, mhaka ya matirisele lamanene ya mapurasi lama yi fanele ku va emahlweni loko hi ta fikelela ku kula ka ikhonomi leyi hi 6% naswona ku kari kutumbuluka mintirho

Cumulatively, restitution has delivered 131 753 hectares of commercial agricultural land for the benefit of 16 541 households. For the 2005/06 year, 25 983ha, benefiting 1 930 households were delivered. The delivery shows that secondment of Departmental staff to the Regional Land Claims Commission is bearing fruits and it is also a positive signal towards realising the 2008 Presidential target for restitution. Among others, nine major restitution projects were settled i.e. Tshivhazwaulu, Tshitwani, Masakona, Xigalo, Ratombo, Ravele, Tshakhuma; Makhutswi; and Makgoba.

The nine involve three blocks of high value commercial horticultural farms in Levubu, Trichardtsdal and Makgoba’s Kloof. Settlement models have been workshopped and adopted by the seven communities involved in the Levubu area and two strategic equity partners have been identified with the communities involved.

While the Department has been a trend-setter nationally regarding the strategic partnership model, this has also been a learning curve. Indeed two major aspects of the model, being job creation and strengthening the economy are undoubtedly being achieved. The green fields, export capacity and relatively happy work-force bear testimony. However, capacity building for the communities as well as constant monitoring and evaluation of the partnerships require a dedicated attention.

A cumulative 53 467 hectares were redistributed through LRAD, benefiting 1 404 farmers. Twelve projects (including the youth project referred to in the 2005/6 speech) will benefit from a poultry project with secured markets. An amount of R16 million has been committed towards construction of the environmentally controlled ‘Tomcan’ poultry houses. Procurement processes are far advanced and implementation will start during April 2006. The investment will create at least 120 temporary jobs during construction and 60 permanent jobs.The house will remember during the NCOP sitting in Nkowankowa that the plight of the Seleisi family was brought to the attention of the political leadership. The family was being denied burial rights for a deceased member by the owner of the private farm on which they were tenants. The highest order of rights have been secured for them through purchase of the same farm by Land Affairs Department, making the Seleisi family owners of the land which they had known as home since time immemorial. Once transfer is processed, the family will be given support through CASP to make the 255 hectare property more sustainable. Two members of the family have currently enrolled at Buhle Academy of Agriculture in Delmas on a six months training programme.

During the same period, media gave a lot of attention to the Settlement Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG) projects that were said to be failing. The Department had conducted a study in the past two years, which revealed the short-comings and challenges these projects were facing, amongst them, very large and incoherent groups as well as incessant inter-group conflicts. In an effort to restructure these projects, the Department, in collaboration with the Provincial Land Reform Office and the Mopani District Municipality is launching a de-registration campaign for SLAG projects this Saturday, 18th March in Tzaneen. The launch hails a process that will encourage inactive members of these projects to de-register. This will allow the few committed members to remain farming under secure arrangements with our support while the inactive ones will have their names cleared from the national database and therefore be able to access other government grants in areas of their major interest.

The Department embarked on improving information collection on agricultural statistics (Agrisurvey 2005/06) which is needed for development and budget planning. A lot of data has been collected and the service provider will submit a final report during the middle of April 2006.

The Provincial Government has identified the need to establish fresh produce packhouse facilities in each district in order to create and ensure market access for our emerging farmers. These facilities will replace what was referred to as “Polokwane Fresh Produce Market” concept for the better part of 2005. In the studies that were conducted it was found that a conventional commission-fee based fresh produce market is not feasible for Polokwane. This is so because Limpopo, while a production base of over 60% of the country’s horticultural commodities, records only 15% consumption of vegetables out of the total R3.2 billion value of horticultural commodities produced in the province.
The bakkie hawkers, Goseame Fresh Mark and the supermarket fresh produce counters, sufficiently cater for the consuming public in Polokwane.

After evaluating and interrogating the feasibility report, the Department decided on the best option available. About nine pack-house facilities will be established in the districts as collection points which at the same time will serve as pack houses. Such facilities will be EuroGAP Certified and will have world-class facilities to enable export of commodities from within the province. The concept of a Logistical Hub in Polokwane will certainly fit well with these facilities. A thorough feasibility analysis for both production capacity and market will be done and completed by end of May 2006. Various private sector models are being pursued to ensure that the Department delivers on the Market Access responsibility that the Executive Council has put on the shoulders of the Executing Authority for Agriculture. Key players in the fresh produce industry including Fruit SA are providing commodity value-chain training support to realise this objective. The Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market has also been in discussion with the Department to develop some common and coherent logistics for our farmers. Emerging farmers have already established a commodity group trading company that will manage their business interests in this process of ensuring market access and economic empowerment based on AgriBEE framework. Their approach will ensure instant access to all major consuming centres of South Africa through the establishment of a joint venture with an existing key player who owns logistics facilities, nurseries and possesses management expertise to be provided via mentorship with the horticultural farmers of the province. The Department will provide support via CASP and Rural Development support funds for the required infrastructure to a tune of R25million in the coming financial year. The implementation of this project will be phased starting with areas where irrigation schemes are ready to start critical mass production of horticultural commodities.

Nga nwedzi wa Luhuhi muhasho washu wo zwi kona u thusa vhalimi vhana kha lwendo law u ya ngei Berlin, Germany hu u itela uri vha kone u vhona zwine manwe mashango a khou ita zwone ngei kha International Fresh Produce Fair, uri musi vha tshi vhuya, vha do kona u khwinisa zwibveledzwa zwavho. Vhenevho ndi vho- Nesane, vho-Hlaisi, vho- Rajomane na mme vho- Legodi.

Lwendo lwa Germany lwo dovha lwa vha na mbuelo mbuya kha Limpopo. Fruit South Africa I khou do thusa vhalimi vhashu kha u sedzulusisa mutevhe wa mveledziso na u pfumbudza vho raikonomi vhashu vha zwavhulimi u thoma nga nwedzi wa Shundunthule 2006. Thuso iyi ya zwa u pfumbudzwa ha vhalimi vhashu, I vhidzwa upfi ndi Top Class Value Chain nahone muhasho wa DTI u do longa tshanda.

Inwe ya dzi mbuelo dza lwendo ulu ndi maele e muhasho wa a wana uri u do kona u thusa vhalimi vhashu kha u swikelela zwine EUROGAP ya toda zwone. Vhalimi vhashu vha fanela u thusiwa uri vha kone u tatisana na vhanwe vhalimi vha lifhasi vha na fhulufhelo kha vhone vhane.

AgriBEE training and awareness programmes have taken place in the province. The Department has cascaded AgriBEE to the grassroots. More than 3 050 Limpopo rural entrepreneurs in 26 Local Municipalities attended these workshops. More than 30% of the participants were women. An amount of R3 million was targeted for this project.

The national Department of Agriculture has introduced MAFISA in order to assist emerging farmers with production input capital. Sekhukhune was identified as a pilot area for MAFISA in Limpopo province. About 3 000 application forms were distributed to Post Offices in the District. To date about 142 farmers applied for assistance. However not a single farmer has received a loan. Many challenges have been encountered, inter alia, lack of capacity on the side of frontline staff; support is only for seed and fertilisers; application forms being too cumbersome and only in English; negative perception of farmers towards Land Bank and its involvement in MAFISA; no demand for credit due to dry risky conditions and lack of a dedicated MAFISA office in the province (The programme is driven from Pretoria). These are the lessons to consider when the programme is rolled out to other districts. The Department has relayed and discussed these lessons to the national Department of Agriculture and proposed a “single management” project approach for consideration.

Revitalisation of irrigation schemes picked up markedly in the 2005/06 financial year. To address the pace of implementation, RESIS’ Recharged programme was launched in June 2005. An amount of R84 m was allocated to focus on the installation of water-saving in-field irrigation technology on twenty three (23) priority irrigation schemes. The “turnkey” approach is being used for the implementation of this programme. This involves the design and construction of irrigation technology by one service provider.

Although there was a slow start due to late appointment of the service providers, the turnkey approach has enabled a remarkable amount of work to be done in five months. Two companies have been appointed as late a September 2005, namely Floppy Irrigation (Pty) Ltd and Unietech (Pty) Ltd to roll out the turnkey approach. To date the two companies have covered about 2 810Ha of water saving in-field irrigation technology in the form of centre pivots, floppy sprinklers and drip irrigation system in most of the twenty three (23) priority irrigation scheme by the end of February 2006. Mbahela; Makuleke; Krokodilheuvel; Coetzeesdraai; Hindustan and Elandskraal irrigation schemes will be ready for winter crop planting. Appropriate strategic partners including Fruit & Veg City have already agreed to provide market for all the commodities from these irrigation schemes.

Good progress is being made on the bulk infrastructure in Sekhukhune at Flag Boshielo Lepelle canal repair works. Over 65 km canal in length with associated road infrastructure and storage dams is being rehabilitated by DWAF term contractors.

A 7 km pipeline from the newly raised dam is currently being constructed to feed the upper part of the canal system directly, thus improving security of supply and obviating the need to pump from the river. Rehabilitation of canals has taken place at Sabie Hoxane as well as the refurbishment of a pump station. A number of schemes have had the fencing refurbished and replaced.

For 2006/07, the Department has allocated R164 million and targets 5 259 hectares on thirty eight (38) additional irrigation schemes in all Districts to be re-vitalised and be productively functioning by 31st March 2007. Three additional agricultural engineering companies will be appointed to increase the pace of covering the targeted 5 259Ha in this financial year.

At the same time, the two major constraints for the RESIS’ programme being electricity and water availability are being fully addressed. In some cases, power supply needs to be upgraded before large three phase pumps can be installed. Eskom is being deeply engaged to resolve this limitation. A growing threat to irrigated farming is the large increase in demand for domestic water supplies. In a number of areas, dams which were constructed for irrigation and domestic water are now fully utilised for domestic. A good example is the Thabina dam near Tzaneen, where the dam struggles to supply the domestic demand and there is no allocation for the irrigation scheme downstream. The domestic demands from the Middle Letaba dam are almost equal to the total dam yield, thus placing in jeopardy the large irrigation area below the dam.

The Department has one public entity namely the Agriculture and Rural Development Corporation (ARDC). The ARDC is being wound down and all of the projects (commercial and developmental) will be transferred into the LDA Land and Agrarian division from 1st April 2006. The successful implementation of Profit Sharing Models under the Empowerment framework of the Department has assisted many projects to become self sustainable and economically viable. While it has been decided to wind-down most of the ARDC’s activities, there is a need as a “developmental state” to maintain and retain the mandate with a small core team focusing on agricultural development and planning in such a public entity as the ARDC to assist the rest of the Department’s programmes. The ARDC utilised its full allocation of R24 million transfer in the preceding year. The ARDC also received unqualified audited report for the 2004/05 financial year.

Honourable Speaker and Members of the House, may I take this opportunity to thank our Premier for continuing to support matters of agriculture. We have received satisfactory rains in the past three months but Limpopo must be reminded that as we invest more in agricultural infrastructure we must not forget that water is not a luxury in Limpopo and we must use it very wisely.

I also take this moment to thank all the Departmental staff for striving to make this sector recognisable by practicing “Nothing about us without us” principle in their daily activities. This year we must ensure that the “Lehumo Le Tšwa Tšhemong” and “’n Boer maak ‘n plan” slogans are added to our fundamental planning and advisory glossary.
I now present the budget vote 4 2006/2007.

I thank you!

Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Limpopo Provincial Government.
16 March 2006