Have you eaten today? Thank a farmer
“Thank you for putting food on the table, thank you for not giving up after what you have endured to date. If you have eaten today, thank a farmer, because agriculture is critical for our food security.”
These profound words were uttered by Shadrack Rachidumela, Bela-Bela municipal councilor during the first Farmers Day event of the Seriti Development Facilitation Agency in Limpopo, which was held at the Towoomba Agricultural Research Station on Wednesday 12 July. Representatives of official departments, farmers, and other stakeholders in agriculture attended the farmer’s day.
Seriti representatives, in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, started a program three years ago in the Bela-Bela area to promote and help facilitate sustainable farming initiatives.
To date, there are 330 active participants, with close to 40 sustainable vegetable gardens that provide food to amongst others schools, destitute families, and old age homes.
Although this was done on a small scale, Seriti hopes to increase production, get farmers access to bigger markets, promote mechanization and gain more funding. This is in conjunction with their social employment program.
They strive to assist farmers to gain the ability to start small and eventually end up commercializing their farming activities.
“People must farm sustainably, otherwise the land will reject them. If they do not take care of their resources such as managing water, they will fail in their venture,” said Marlise Borman from the Department of Agriculture in the Waterberg.
“We are excited about initiatives such as this because we have cattle-, poultry and vegetable farmers who are contributing the value chain. It is their responsibility to deliver food to the nation. Our country, however, is unfortunately known for many communities going without food and we must alleviate this.”
She encouraged the members to use the skills, resources, and experiences Seriti and the other farmers have to offer. Farmers easily lend a helping hand to others in the trade. Up-coming farmers have to utilize this generosity.
Despite the excitement, Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist representing the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz), put the reality of the economy and the future of farming into perspective.
“We have four problems in farming. One is land reform, because little land has been put additional into proper farming to increase food production, 2 million hectares of government land is available for those farmers that have the knowledge. The second is finance and the lack thereof — the Land Bank cannot be blamed entirely. Farmers need to put in their own resources to show they are credible farmers. The third is prioritizing biosecurity; if this is not taken into consideration diseases and famine will be the outcome. The fourth factor is that government must improve our road-, rail-, electricity- and water infrastructure immediately,” said Sihlobo.
He listed load shedding, load reduction, and unregulated foot and mouth disease as some of the hardships that farmers had to endure over the past few years.
“The proverbial saying that a farmer can come up with a plan, has never been more applicable.”
He encouraged farmers to apply to the government’s Agri Energy Fund, which will subsidize a portion of the fee needed to install alternative energy resources such as solar energy on farms.
