In a bid to turn the province’s failed land projects into successful commercial farms, Agri Eastern Cape has joined hands with the Humansdorp Co-op to form a transformation hub.
The hub, which was announced by Agri EC president Doug Stern at the organisation’s congress in Jeffreys Bay last Thursday, was formed a day earlier during a meeting of its general council.
However, Stern already plans to bring some hope to land reform beneficiaries who have been left to their own devices.
“The hub is still very much in its infant stages, but we are going to team up with the coop – which has been extremely successful with transforming subsistence farmers and beneficiaries who’ve been put on land that has not worked, as a consequence of the government’s failure to properly establish them,” Stern said.
“We’ve joined forces with them so we can take [their models for transformation] down to farmer association level and encourage farmers who want to participate in this scheme.
“If there is, for example, a unit that is being misused within an area of a specific farmers’ association, whereby the beneficiaries are absolutely rudderless and destitute, we will identify them and use the expertise from the co-op to try to revitalise them again.”
Rural development and agrarian reform MEC Xolile Nqatha’s spokesperson, Andile Fani, said the department welcomed Agri EC’s willingness to assist with the projects.
“Government in itself cannot work alone,” Fani said
“We will be ready and waiting for them, and will listen to their proposal and take the process forward.
“It is our firm belief that if they are prepared to assist, it would make a meaningful impact to the economy of the province and, I think, assist in the unity of the country and the province.”
Stern said he hoped farmers would assist through forming joint ventures.
“[Where the state has] a beneficiary on their land, but the beneficiary has nothing to generate income from, we’ll go to our farmer members and [ask] them to buy in or supply loose assets in the form of livestock for [five or six years].
“The idea is to speed up transformation,” he said.
Humansdorp Co-op manager for farm development, Deon Heyns, said joint ventures had proven successful in the work it had done with emerging farmers over the past 4½ years.
“Through this partnership we want to share our recipe for successful joint ventures,” he said.
“[We want to show] how to structure such ventures in a way where everybody wins, and enable Agri EC members to become involved in joint ventures as well.”
The hub would also engage with the government on the way forward.
“The government has a responsibility to make sure that land reform works,” Stern said.
“We need to make this a success because we have to prove to the government that if land reform is done in a proper manner, you don’t have to do anything radical.”
The first step was a meeting between Stern and Agri EC operations manager Brett McNamara, who has been charged with running the project.
Stern said Agri EC and the province at large would benefit from the initiative.
“[Having successful black commercial farmers] is all we want,” he said.
“We just want to make sure land reform works – it’s crucial, or there will be dissatisfaction all the time.
“We want transformation in agriculture, but it must be done in an orderly way.”
Failed projects for the hub to assist will be identified through district land reform committees and communities.
“We’re going to look at involving businesses who want to come on board, [as well as] co-ops and private individuals, because it’s going to be in the interest of everyone in the Eastern Cape,” Stern said.
“It’s about fixing what government failed to do [to] establish successful farmers.”