Chairperson, members of the Cabinet, colleagues, comrades, friends and fellow South Africans, I am privileged to stand before you and address this Parliament on a very emotive issue for our people in the rural and peri-urban areas of our country. Eighteen years into our democracy, South Africa is debating a very important aspect of our economy, food production in rural and peri-urban areas - in short, food security!
We do so against a background where, for the first time in our post-1994 democratic establishment, the focus in our ANC-led government and Parliament has been directed at confronting poverty right where it is felt most, that is, in the rural and peri-urban areas.
Let us thank His Excellency President J G Zuma and his visionary leadership collective for an incisive intervention which has led to the establishment of a dedicated Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform under the able stewardship of hon Gugile Nkwinti.
During the presidential inauguration on 9 May 2009, His Excellency President Zuma declared to our people and the world that:
For as long as there are rural dwellers unable to make a decent living from the land on which they live; For as long as there are women who are subjected to discrimination, exploitation or abuse; For as long as there are children who do not have the means nor the opportunity to receive a decent education ... we shall not rest, and we dare not falter ...
... in our drive to eradicate poverty.
As the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries we have an unwritten rule that ours is a nonpolitical oversight committee that is bound by a desire to rally the executive and society in general towards a safe, food-secure South Africa that will see all having access to food, and where no one will go to bed hungry.
In pursuance of growth in six key sectors in line with the New Growth Path, among others infrastructure development, agriculture and the economy, to mention but a few, President Zuma further elaborated:
To achieve these goals, we have to build a strong mixed economy, where the state, private sector, co-operative and other forms of social ownership complement each other, to achieve shared and inclusive economic growth.
This is in keeping with our slogan, "Working together we can do more", both as the public and as the private sector.
As far back as 1955, the people of South Africa declared at Kliptown:
The land shall be shared among those who work it!
That beacon of hope, the Freedom Charter, further declared:
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it, to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers; Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.
Among the main objects has been, and continues to be, the curtailment of food insecurity by improving food production and income-generating activities in the rural areas through access to land, water, credit, markets, and research and extension services. So said the ANC Agricultural Policy of 1994.
In addition to rural and peri-urban households that have land in their properties, such land as municipal commonages, unused municipal land and land under the care of local chiefs can be sustainably used to grow food for the rural poor.
However, in some areas commonages are not included in local economic development, LED, or integrated development plans, IDPs, as possible economic development tools. As a result, some commonages are not well managed and have been left as open-access areas with no infrastructure, and where there was infrastructure, it has been damaged. Some of these end up being turned into informal settlements. Unused land in schoolyards, clinics and other government properties can also be sustainably used to produce food for the rural and peri-urban population.
Rural and peri-urban food production can be easily integrated into municipalities' waste management programmes or strategies for recycling of organic waste and by-products, and use of non-conventional water.
Given that South Africa is a water-scarce country and some municipalities are struggling to meet the water needs of their citizens, there should be a strong focus on water-conserving farming practices; cost recovery mechanisms from water-consuming producers; and treatment of waste water for vegetable irrigation.
It should be noted that rural and peri-urban agriculture or food production is not confined to vegetable production and the planting of fruit trees but, where land and resources are available, other options include livestock and poultry production, as well as aquaculture. These, however, should be canvassed in accordance with the relevant national environmental legislation, municipal by-laws and policies regarding environmental protection, management, health and safety.
Due to a lack of transport infrastructure in the rural and peri-urban areas, opportunities for agro-processing exist. These will go a long way in addressing unemployment and enterprise development in these areas, therefore ensuring that smaller numbers of our people migrate to urban areas.
There are a number of rural and peri-urban agriculture projects throughout the country and, although some have been initiated and are supported by municipalities, most have been initiated by community groups, nongovernmental organisations, NGOs, and in some cases, academic institutions. There is a need for government in all spheres to upscale such success stories and spread the lessons that have been learnt to other poor rural and peri-urban areas.
Therefore, for rural and peri-urban food production to be successful, as in most cases elsewhere, there needs to be co-ordination and integration of activities by all relevant government agencies and other stakeholders that are involved.
Municipalities should play a central role and, where there is potential, include rural and peri-urban food production initiatives in their local economic development and integrated development plans, IDPs. Other departments and agencies, such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Water and Environmental Affairs, Eskom, Trade and Industry, the Industrial Development Corporation and Public Works, among others, should also be involved.
Public authorities are expected to take responsibility for securing the required resources, especially land and small plots within and around rural towns and cities, as well as sufficient water and other infrastructure.
There is a need for adequate agricultural technical training programmes and supervision or extension services to producers. Equally, there is a need to promote and finance greater links between production, agro-processing and marketing for more self-reliant rural food systems, and more local employment and revenues.
There is also a need for greater decentralisation of agricultural policy from central to municipal governments, and for support to rural, locally relevant food production and sustainable rural and peri-urban food practices.
When all of this is said and done, the question that remains is: How can one best move beyond mere subsistence farming? Your surplus must be able to reach the markets. One of those programmes that we have is a programme that seeks to bring hunger down to zero. When all of the food is produced, access in schools, in clinics and in prisons, among others, should be made possible with all the integrated and collaborative efforts by all in government in the national, provincial and local spheres. This cannot be done outside of government support systems.
We have seen the department, in keeping with the Freedom Charter, distributing seed, tractors and infrastructure to the needy, among others. However, what you have in the local rural and peri-urban areas in our country is that the majority of livestock owners happen to be black, yet they contribute minimally towards food production in our country.
This should be a clarion call for more interventions by our own government. More provinces must become involved in livestock improvement programmes like you saw in Mount Frere about a month ago, and also in an area called Fort Cox in the Eastern Cape. These are programmes that are aimed at taking cattle from being in a position where they will not fetch a price, even below R4 000 or R5 000, to a price in relation to their own feedlots, which are being supported. The cattle will find themselves in a position where they are marketable.
Our parliamentary committee that deals with Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has also been able to address one of the critical areas with regard to support by the department and also by society in general in those rural communities.
The doctors for those animals are called veterinarians, and are a very, very scarce resource. We have been able, as I said, to pass legislation on veterinary and para-veterinary professional services. Today we were informed that the NCOP has received this legislation. This law is, among other things, aimed at getting to a stage where we can say that our people in the rural areas will no longer find it difficult to access services from veterinarians and para-veterinarians. When this law comes into effect, we are going to have a year when these veterinarians, upon their having passed their degrees, will go out into the field, especially in rural areas, to assist our people out there in making a difference for the better in their lives.
In conclusion, food production cannot be a political football in our country, which has shifted from being a net exporter of food to being a net importer of processed food. We all have a responsibility in turning the tide. Indeed, South Africa can be better than yesterday, if we focus on our working towards food for all in our country. I thank you. [Applause.]
Chairperson, I would like to start by responding to what hon Johnson has just said. I want to remind this House that the topic for today is "the effectiveness of food production schemes in rural and peri-urban areas". Hon Johnson, I know that you said that there was no space for political debate in this portfolio, but unfortunately you had nothing to say about this department. My speech will give you insight into that.
Chairperson, all reports indicate that chronic food insecurity exists at significantly high levels in South Africa today. Composites of the best data suggest that approximately 11 million people in 2,8 million households are vulnerable to food insecurity, that is, at least one in every five South Africans. Moreover, 72% of these reside in the rural areas. In a world of plenty this is unacceptable.
To make things worse, almost 9 million tons of food are wasted every year in South Africa, the large majority of which doesn't even make it to the market!
The biggest single challenge for poor South Africans is access to food and/or the means to produce it. Over time, rural and peri-urban citizens have had increasingly less opportunity to produce their own food and have therefore become increasingly reliant on government grants.
Estimates suggest that only four million people are engaged in smallholder agriculture as a main source of food or subsistence production. But government does not collect data with which to credibly establish the contribution of the subsistence or smallholder agricultural sector to food security. It is therefore difficult to understand how they can expect us to believe in their purported successes in this area.
The Global Food Security Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU, this year scored South Africa 40th out of 105 surveyed countries. The index also showed a significant correlation with the EIU Women's Economic Opportunity Index, which measures female economic participation.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN estimates that if women had access to the same reproductive resources as men - better seeds, fertilisers and fungicides - they could increase their yield by 20% to 30%. As women make up 43% of the world's farmers, this would increase total agricultural output in developing countries by 2% to 4%, and reduce hunger globally by 12% to 17%.
These findings alone provide the irrefutable impetus for government to dismantle the archaic and counterproductive forms of communal land tenure in the former homelands under the political power of the chiefs. Sir, 1,5 million ha of South Africa's 5 million ha high-potential agricultural land lies in these former homelands under communal tenure - a fruitless economic institution and a far cry from the individual title deeds necessary to incentivise economic productivity. The upshot of this arrangement is a contradiction that keeps citizens in bondage and undermines efforts to attain food security, a strong prerequisite for economic growth. Economic property rights should therefore clearly be extended to all South Africans, especially in the former homelands.
A government that continues to wilfully keep people in bondage through archaic institutional structures, the very thing that South Africans in all walks of life fought against during the apartheid era, is guilty of denying its citizens access to economic opportunities. And it is this access to opportunity, especially for women, that would harness food security and serve as a catalyst for dynamic economic growth. If government does not listen to the evidence, then it clearly cares more about hanging onto power than it does about economic growth.
The Institute for Security Studies, in a report prepared for Parliament earlier this year, conveys that, and I quote:
Experience from other countries indicates that a comprehensive approach to the provision of support services to achieve growth in the smallholder agricultural sector is essential. In the absence of appropriate farmer support programmes, smallholder farmers will have little chance of escaping poverty and agriculture's role of creating livelihood opportunities will remain limited. Subsistence production not only contributes directly to these households' food security as a supply of food, but also enables households to divert income to meet other requirements.
Food security is linked to livelihood assets, strong institutional support and a favourable external environment. Policies and strategies to increase agricultural productivity can make a significant contribution towards reducing households' food insecurity status.
Government's current initiatives, including the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme, or Casp as everyone knows it, are to provide post- settlement support to land reform and previously disadvantaged farmers. There are at least three other initiatives which are meant to form part of the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme, IFSNP, but these have yet to be implemented as a co-ordinated and consolidated strategy.
Research evidence strongly indicates that Casp, along with the other programmes of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Daff, have failed to be realised or make a positive impact on the lives of beneficiaries. The name of the Zero Hunger Programme is self-explanatory. This is Daff's homegrown food security policy, but very confusing in the way it is to be implemented. Its goals consist of improving the food production capacity of households and poorly resourced farmers, and developing market channels through bulk government procurement of food linked to the emerging agricultural sector. The tenderpreneurs are already licking their lips!
Adding to the general confusion is a project called the Masibambisane Rural Development Initiative, led by the President. It appears to form part of, or to have replaced the Zero Hunger Programme, but replies to my parliamentary questions have shown that there is no business plan for this initiative! The concept document provides little of substance in regard to how to achieve South Africa's Millennium Development Goals. If anything, the initiative appears to be diverting funds from government departments in order to aid President Zuma's Mangaung re-election efforts. How else can one explain this R800 million project which has no clear business plan?
If the Cabinet want South Africa to take government seriously and believe that they really are committed to alleviating food insecurity, they have no choice but to dismiss Minister Joemat-Pettersson. Less than 20% of the department's planned targets were fully achieved, even though the department managed to spend 99% of its appropriated budget! The ultimate responsibility for the performance of any department rests with the Minister. Clearly, Minister Joemat-Pettersson is unfit to hold public office!
Minister, it is also a pity that you could not attend our meeting with the Red Meat Industry Forum this morning, where we discussed serious implications for food security in South Africa. Mr S K Makinana, who attended this meeting, asked, and in his words his question was: "If the government does not give assistance to black farmers, how will the youth ever get into farming and get interested in farming?" Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Chair, the debate on "the effectiveness of food production schemes in rural and peri-urban areas" is critical in alleviating and eradicating poverty, and in building a democratic society. This morning Mrs Thobeka Mabhija-Zuma echoed this in a debate in her campaign against cancer. She said that it was important for our country to make sure that, in promoting healthy living, we supported in a massive way the idea of small gardens and food production in our country.
This could assist in building up a massive number of smallholder farmers in our country for the future. There are many schemes that have been introduced in order to intervene in regard to food production in our country. It is a good thing that we as government have introduced. The most important point is that we must work together to make sure that we have stable food production for all our people in order to alleviate poverty in South Africa.
What concerns us is the fact that the schemes that we have, like Mafisa and many other financial schemes, which are supposed to intervene in our people's lives, do not reach the people they are supposed to reach. The problem is implementation. The government provides funding, but are we able to take the money that is supposed to be used to intervene in smallholder farming and give it to the people that are supposed to receive it?
There are initiatives, such as the one in Walmer in my constituency, of smallholder farmers who are producing food in our country. The problem is the necessary support and monitoring from the department, which I think should be looked into. As Cope, our concern is the amount of food which enters this country wrongly labelled. We were told today that Orion Cold Storage Company has been accused of bringing amounts of food into this country illegally, particularly pork hearts which are labelled as beef and sheep hearts. This is a threat to the security of our food in this country.
We must make sure that we produce our own local food. We must do this together in order to make sure that our nation is not under threat tomorrow because we cannot produce food any more. We as Cope say in this case today that a country without food cannot survive. We might have a food revolt in the country if we do not intervene as quickly as possible to make sure that each and every household in the country has food on its table.
Therefore, we as Cope say that we must strengthen the mechanisms in the department and also have certainty about those who have to be accountable, like those on the Ncera Farms who in the past have failed to produce food with the money that was provided by government. Thank you.
Hon House Chair, food production and security remain under serious threat in our country. Unsustainable farming practices, coupled with rising input prices, declining crop yields, increasing demand and polluted soil conditions, create a precarious platform for agricultural food production and security in South Africa.
We are seeing average food increases of 13% per year and this is currently without the contribution of increased demand. Our population is growing and, as it does, so will the demand and prices increase, if supply remains constant. The only way to stave off increasing prices is to increase supply, and by this we mean local supply.
Why must our local agricultural producers compete with foreign exporters of food crops? More must be done locally. We have a resource-intensive land and an abundance of human capital. There is no sane reason for us to have to rely so heavily upon imported foodstuffs.
The IFP therefore calls for food production schemes in both our peri-urban and rural areas to receive greater state incentivisation and support. Educational farming programmes, soft agricultural government loans and the idea of "South Africa first" must become the dominant themes in our thinking on this matter. I thank you.
Hon Chairperson, over the years the department has introduced a number of schemes aimed at improving the plight and financial position of our communities in rural and peri-urban areas. Some of these programmes have contributed immensely to food security in South Africa.
However, despite these achievements, more needs to be done to ensure that deep rural communities benefit from these programmes. The UDM is inundated with calls from rural communities complaining of being overlooked by the department in connection with assistance with fertilisers and seeds. In addition, some of these beneficiaries of the department's food production schemes complain about receiving inadequate support and guidance from the department.
The UDM therefore calls on the department to provide more support to and monitoring of the beneficiaries of these programmes to ensure that they become self-sufficient. Thank you.
Hon Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Members of Parliament and guests in the gallery, the thrust of the ANC's policies is "Power to the people". It is through the Freedom Charter that we project a different vision from that of the apartheid past, a past which sought to divide our people along racial and gender lines and trap the overwhelming majority of the population in conditions of poverty and social, economic and political exclusion. Central to this task has been the fight against unemployment, poverty and inequality in our society.
In so far as subsistence farming and access to markets are concerned, the rural areas remain divided. There are well-developed, white commercial farming areas and impoverished rural communities. Land and agrarian reforms have not produced the desired results.
The ANC considers subsistence farming as a pillar of our struggle against unemployment, poverty and inequality. People living in rural areas face the harshest conditions of poverty, food insecurity and lack of access to services on an almost daily basis. Workers living in rural areas face the brunt of poverty, with many of them working long hours for poverty wages. Women in particular, who form the majority of residents in rural areas, face the burden of poverty. The ANC is committed to a comprehensive subsistence farming strategy linked to agrarian reforms, which builds the potential for rural, sustainable livelihoods, particularly for African women.
The Freedom Charter says:
Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no one shall go hungry.
The pursuit of household and national food security is a constitutional mandate of the ANC government. We have to continue to create an environment which ensures that there is adequate food available to all, now and in the future, and that hunger is eradicated. The ANC government is already putting in place an emergency food relief programme on a mass scale in the form of food assistance to the poorest households and communities. Increased subsistence production has the potential to improve the food security of poor households in both rural and urban areas, by increasing food supply and by reducing dependence on purchasing food in a context of high food price inflation.
The Land Reform Policy is one of the initiatives of government to redress the imbalances of the past by affording the previously disadvantaged majority access to agricultural land. However, the settlement of new farmers with limited capacity to produce optimally, coupled with poor financial and market support, poses a threat to overall agricultural productivity.
Land is integral to livelihood security, and land reform is integral to poverty reduction. Land can be a catalyst in the development of rural areas through links with input supply, processing and distribution activities, and expanding employment opportunities.
Within the Southern African Development Community, SADC, region women are responsible for over 80% of food access, either through own production or purchasing. Land reform should therefore prioritise gender equity in land ownership. Women are often part of the entities that own land, but they are not the custodians of its productivity. Land reform should prioritise the ownership of land by women with targets of 10% by 2015, and 15% by 2030.
Customary laws governing land ownership rights in the communal areas also discriminate against women, and traditional leaders should prioritise the allocation of land to women for subsistence farming and agricultural production at large.
Formerly controlled markets have been radically deregulated since 1996. The enactment of the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act of 1996 provided certain limited government interventions in the market, such as registration, regulation and information collection, but by early 1998 all control boards had ceased operations, and their assets were transferred to industry trusts, which are expected to provide services such as market information, export advice and product development.
Food price controls were removed and single-channel markets disappeared with the abolition of these control boards. As a result, the small-scale sector remains characterised by low productivity, a lack of access to markets, and insufficient market information, as well as poor capacity, and a lack of production, of marketing infrastructure, and of the required protection in order to develop.
Linkages within the input markets, which involve seeds, agro-chemicals and mechanisation, and the outputs, which are trading, processing, manufacturing and retailing, create barriers to market entry, and worsen terms of trade for the emerging agricultural sector. Their access to the national commercial food value chains should be policy-driven and coupled with support to meet the required specified market standards.
The AgriBEE Transformation Charter is one of the interventions by the state to promote economic transformation by increasing the participation of black people in the agri-industry. The charter requires the industry to implement broad-based black economic empowerment principles throughout the value chain. This will be achieved through ownership and preferential procurement, in order for the emerging agriculture sector to actively participate in the agricultural economy. The charter requires the agri- industry to produce 10% of their total products from the emerging agricultural sector.
According to Statistics SA, about 3 million households experience inadequate to severely inadequate access to food, and over 72% of these are in rural areas. South Africa faces the following challenges in attaining national food security. The country is able to produce or procure sufficient food, but food access by all remains elusive. There are limited opportunities and platforms for the poor and marginalised to participate in economic activities to provide the income to purchase food. The availability of adequate, timely and relevant information for analysis, monitoring and evaluation of, and reporting on the impact of food security programmes on rural communities is a work in progress.
In conclusion, the ANC government is working tirelessly to intensify subsistence farming so as to ensure that more productive land is in the hands of the rural poor. Less than a quarter of South African households are involved in subsistence farming and the majority produce only for household consumption. The rest of the population depends on income from employment to purchase food, making employment a pivotal determinant of food security.
As we speak, the ANC government is busy providing the rural poor with technical skills and financial resources to productively use the land and create sustainable livelihoods. The ANC government is ensuring a much stronger linkage between land, the agrarian sector and water resource allocation, so as to ensure that the best quality water resources reach all people, especially the poor.
In keeping with the vision of the Freedom Charter, the ANC will continue to work towards a comprehensive food security system and enhance our delivery by promoting subsistence farming as part of our efforts to build a caring and cohesive society. I thank you.
For small-scale farmers to provide food and income for their families, they need help to get started in farming more effectively - to access high-quality seeds and livestock, to learn new ways of farming, and to learn how to work together as an effective farming group.
Thousands of South Africans suffer from hunger and poverty on a daily basis. When Julia Ngwana's two daughters were younger, she used to beg for work to earn money to supplement the tiny food parcel that was the family's only source of food. A few years later she was not only able to feed her family, but supported her daughter in going to university. She did this through goat farming, assisted by a nongovernmental organisation, NGO, that helps rural families to become independent small-scale farmers, by providing training, seeds, trees, livestock and three years of support. More should be done by government to support NGOs like this one which clearly has the ability to deliver results.
Creating a genuinely enabling environment in South Africa for agricultural markets to thrive requires government to invest. Roads need to be built in inaccessible rural areas, irrigation schemes must be set up, and a wide range of highly functional, scientific support institutions have to be maintained. Thank you. The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Hon House Chairperson, hon members of the House, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, and members of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, for the past two days more than 2 000 representatives of smallholder farmers from all provinces have been meeting in Midrand as the African Farmers Association of South Africa, Afasa, to discuss their work as smallholder farmers. They spoke for themselves, about themselves and about where they wanted to go.
The opposition attended the Agri SA Conference, but funnily enough failed to attend the Afasa Conference! Four agricultural unions, including Agri SA and the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Tau, have distanced themselves from the DA, especially from the disparaging remarks of hon member Steyn. What I would like to ask the hon member Steyn is whether the DA still has members left in agriculture, since all the unions, Agri SA and the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Tau, no longer support her or support the DA. Funnily enough, Agri SA has already attended three policy conferences of the ANC and it will certainly be at Mangaung, hon ANC members. [Applause.] [Interjections.]
Order! Order, please!
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Dogs never bark at a stationary vehicle or car. When the car moves, the dogs will start barking. The faster the car moves, the louder the dogs bark. Hon members, you have heard the loud barking and howling noises this afternoon. The only problem is that the car has long since left them behind!
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa guarantees all citizens of our country the right to sufficient food and water. Since the adoption of the Constitution, our country has implemented a number of programmes aimed at achieving food security for all. For various reasons, however, we still cannot claim to have achieved our goal, as a large number of households have an inadequate food supply.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may ask yourselves why a debate on food production is necessary. That is because you cannot address food security without taking aim at food production, particularly in a country like ours, where the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment confronts us every day.
While food prices have increased generally, it remains an anomaly that the basket of basic foodstuffs in rural areas is more expensive than in urban areas. This is despite the fact that the burden of joblessness, inequality and poverty is even more pronounced in rural areas.
South Africa as a country is food secure. In fact, we are a net exporter of primary agricultural foods! This situation is good, but it must also be protected and we cannot be complacent. Even though South Africa has food security as a country, we do not have household food security. Those who do not have household food security are predominantly African - black African women, and rural women in particular.
Climate change and the loss of agricultural land to other priorities always make us vulnerable to sudden changes in food prices. We are also vulnerable to international fluctuations, as the drought in the United States has shown us. We are okay for now, but we must be vigilant about our national food security, especially during this time of high food prices, food price volatility and inflation.
Our country is a net importer only of processed goods. Please, we are not overall a net importer of food. We export primary agricultural goods and we import processed goods.
Our real problem is what we call making every individual and every household food secure. Up to 10 million South Africans are vulnerable to food insecurity. This is where many of our systems have gone wrong. We are overdependent on markets and retailers for our food needs and when these fail us, we see food insecurity. When food is dumped by retailers or farmers, we depend on organisations like FoodBank to assist us to distribute waste food and food donations to the poorest of the poor.
About the stuck record of the R800 million project, there is no business plan because there is no R800 million allocation! The stuck record of the hon member Steyn will never stop because she has nothing else to say. It is really unbecoming and very sad that this hon member underestimates her own intelligence.
With regard to attendance at meetings, there is no way that a national Minister can attend each and every portfolio committee meeting every week. A Minister is not a member of the portfolio committee. So, there is an unbelievable perception that a Minister, or I in this case, must be at a portfolio committee meeting every week. That is totally absurd. [Interjections.]
Order! Order! Order!
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Today the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, is having a binational meeting with the South African government, and it is expected of me to leave an international meeting, which is of critical importance for us as a country, in order to attend a portfolio committee meeting at the behest of the DA!
The DA and the media will never run the agenda of transformation in agriculture. [Applause.] Agriculture will not be determined by the media and the DA.
Food production schemes, from the smallest backyard lot to school and community gardens, as the smallholder farmers themselves have said over the past two days, as well as co-operative schemes, have been our major response to the challenges of household food security. I am happy that we have seen remarkable differences, with ample evidence of the effectiveness of such schemes. Of course, more needs to be done and everything is not perfect. However, they are effective in regard to growing food, which is our first priority. Poverty and inequality are addressed through better nutrition and use of income. The country gains as a result.
In fact, we would not really need a debate on the effectiveness of such schemes if the DA, or the opposition, had nurtured and developed black farmers in the past. These schemes have shown themselves to be successful in the developing world.
I would like to thank the hon chairperson of the portfolio committee for highlighting this matter and calling for this debate. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.