Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, members of the House, the Free State remains a leader in agriculture thus contributing significantly to food production and job creation. With these significant changes in the policy formulation, we hope that the input of 4,1% of gross domestic product and 13% of employment will change drastically.
The Free State has a dual agricultural economy consisting of a well- developed commercial sector which is predominantly white and very conservative, and a subsistence-oriented sector in the rural areas which is predominantly rural and African. The national department's mission of ensuring the achievement of sustainable, equitable and efficient agricultural development in which Government will facilitate and encourage the development of the small farm sector and encourage a more diverse support system for farmers has, in my view, not yielded the desired results. We should ensure that we expedite the process to include the settlement of women and youth.
Let us refer back to the background of agriculture in the South African context. Agriculture has been designed to benefit a small group of white conservatives. It ensured perpetual enslavement of poor African peasants through meagre wages and unfavourable working conditions. Yes, we agree to the gradual eradication of this legacy, but the patience of the African peasants on the platteland of our country is gradually diminishing. In our provincial scenario, the budget that has been allocated to the department will not be able to change this setup as the largest share is directed towards addressing personnel matters, while the training of emerging farmers will receive less of the budget than anticipated.
I agree that the Government of the day did, indeed, succeed in effecting some changes to agricultural sector policies, but they have not brought about the desired changes in the agricultural sector. After five years commercial farming is still dominated by whites, while small agricultural farming is predominantly made up of African farmers who cannot access finance from the Land Bank and who are still refused membership of co- operatives which are dominated by white farmers. And, owing to budget cuts in our province, technical assistance to the emerging agricultural sector has been dealt a severe blow.
The Minister in her Budget Vote did concede to the fact that agriculture was designed on a racial basis and that we should assist in deracialising the sector. This can only be changed through policies that are very radical in nature and form. There are farmers in the Free State who have indeed brought about some changes to the lives of their workers by providing them with houses and sanitation, but this is still not enough. Serious efforts have been made by the Department of Agriculture in the Free State to facilitate the establishment of agrivillages, and this is seen as the only way to curb the level of evictions in our province.
This will also help to curb migration from farms to so-called townships where the levels of crime are very high and where the levels of those lacking housing are very high.
The process of land restitution is very slow. Where it is applicable in our province, mainly in Bloemfontein and Odendaalsrus, it has created a lot of problems, such as overcrowding, and has not provided any solution to land problems.
In the province the land restitution programme of the Department of Land Affairs is very independent, but as a province we would like to see more synergy and improvement in relationships.
Globalisation and mechanisation are areas that need to be looked into seriously. Owing to a fear of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, most white farmers have resorted to mechanisation as an alternative to supplementing their workforce.
In regard to globalisation, South Africa, as an exporting country, has to comply with importing conditions of other countries which are at times not favourable to our situation.
In April 1999 the department came out with what was called a ``setup scheme'', and this programme was intended to create a framework in terms of which emerging farmers would be able to borrow money from financial institutions. However, the money that this scheme provided was not enough to address problems in the emerging agricultural sector.
The main objective of the land redistribution programme was to provide the poor with land for residential and agricultural purposes. The beneficiaries included the poor, land tenants, farmworkers, women and emerging farmers, but the programme did not meet the desired objectives.
As previous speakers have mentioned, we are still today, as the Free State, faced with the serious problem of evictions. Recently our province embarked on a programme to establish the conditions of farmworkers. It was noted that the most common problem in our province was the unlawful evictions in which farmers were able to evict farmworkers without authorised eviction orders from the courts.
In conclusion, the Government must take reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources to create an enabling climate which would ensure access to land on an equitable basis. [Applause.]