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1 August 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, today we have arrived at the end of a process that began with provincial consultations with the objective to get all agriculture stakeholders in the provinces to think through how we could together improve performance in the implementation of the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme (LARP) and to address challenges of high food prices and their implications to food security amongst the poor.

I would like to congratulate all of us for the constructive way in which we have engaged around agriculture issues during the past three days. I have come to realise that in agriculture we may disagree on a number of different issues, but in the end we agree on what is important for agriculture in the country.

As we respond to the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme, we will also be responding to food insecurity issues as they arise due to high food prices. We would like to call upon all those who have the capacity to influence the reversal of the upward trend of food prices to work with government.

From our part as government, we have initiated the Agricultural Starter Pack Programme to support production, and over and above all stakeholders are implored to support the government campaigns on Ilima/Letsema. We also need to align our programmes for addressing poverty to the war on poverty campaign to ensure maximum impact.

In unpacking the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme and responding to each pillar, we resolved the following

In accelerating sustainable Land Reform we resolved to:
* fast-track and remove all bottlenecks to complete the Land Restitution processes and release commonages to emerging farmers
* commercial agriculture to assist in making land prices affordable.

In increasing black entrepreneurs in agri business we resolved to:
* facilitate the creation of production hubs in local areas with farmer support linkages between local and international markets, and diversify production activities outside normal products to include horticulture and other high value crops for the creation of economic enterprises and export opportunities in the sector.

Providing universal access to support services we resolved that we:
* will invest in training and skills development, revitalise agricultural colleges and research facilities
* will package and provide information on support programmes, services and products available for different farmer groups through co-operation between government and the private sector.

Increasing agricultural production by 10% we resolved that we:
* will implement the Maputo Declaration.
* will increase government support to farmers to improve production on a long term basis.
* will support urban agriculture and household food production.

Increasing agricultural trade by 10% we resolved that we:
* will implementation of the trade and tariff polices
* will establish a committee to ensure representation and participation of emerging farmers in the standards setting bodies for regulatory issues
* will facilitate training and exposure of farmers around maximum residue level issues
* will capacitate farmers with an understanding of animal and plant diseases and the concomitant regulatory environment.

In taking this process forward, I will establish a steering committee that will engage all stakeholders at provincial and national level in the development of the plan of action for the implementation of the above resolutions within 3 months of the adoption of the declaration by all stakeholders. We also aim to facilitate the implementation of this plan of action and set up monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

We should also as a collective agree that we will remain fully committed to the realisation of the aspirations of all stakeholders in agriculture, and will continue to work together in the coming years to mobilise political and financial resources and establish enduring procedures nationally to monitor the implementation processes.

We also call upon other government departments critical to the realisation of the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme in South Africa, such as the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, Department of Trade and Industry, National Treasury, Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism to support the implementation of the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme to achieve sustainable food security, jobs for wealth creation through agriculture.

I wish to thank all participants who have made time to come and apply their minds on these critical issues. I also wish to thank the team which worked tirelessly to make this consultation happen and in particular the interns who were brought here to provide much needed assistance, I will like to thank the hotel staff for their support and all those who have had an input into this process.

Issued by: Department of Agriculture
1 August 2008
Source: Department of Land Affairs (http://www.nda.agric.za)