Hon Chairperson, the IFP will support this Budget Vote mainly for two reasons. Firstly, we would like to see the implementation of the key programme to transform this sector. Secondly, we would like to see an acceleration of agricultural development in the rural areas.
Currently, these areas are where the poorest of the poor are living. Yet, they are almost totally neglected. This makes it clear, therefore, that the IFP support for the budget is informed more by expectations than by the achievements of the department.
I am fully aware that this is a new department which needs time to put its strategies and structures in place before it can turn to implementation. This preparatory work usually takes up to two years, but perhaps there is just one major weakness of the ANC government. They do not allow many departments to stabilise and settle down to do their business. Each new term of government sets up its new departments and appoints new Ministers.
It may be argued that this is necessary, but it definitely has its shortcomings as portfolio committees are then bombarded with plan after plan of what the new department would like to achieve, leaving themselves little time to deliver on such plans. No wonder there is this huge outcry for delivery of services, even by supporters of the governing party.
Strategic plans that are not implemented remain just that: mere plans that benefit nobody, no matter how beautiful they might be. This department needs stability even more than many other departments because it must bring the hope of survival to millions of citizens of this country by ensuring food security. In these days of unprecedented unemployment, agricultural products would go a long way towards putting some food on the table.
With the little time at my disposal, let me focus more on rural development. As far as this is concerned, I sometimes get the idea that those who strategise around rural development are not exactly familiar with this terrain. For instance, they recognise that the planting of mealies, which is a staple food for most South Africans, is imperative. Provincial departments of agriculture then proceed to rural areas to plough the land.
In Nkandla, where I come from, their tractors usually arrive in February, whereas the ploughing season in that part of the world is between October and December. In my book, that counts as sheer wasteful expenditure.
Then again, the department focuses more on enhancing the productive capacity of black emerging farmers and neglects access to markets. Through its extension officers, it encourages such smallholder farmers to concentrate on poultry farming and vegetable and fruit gardens, which unfortunately yield perishable products. They assist with seeds and capital funding. Sadly, there is no buying power in the rural areas. People who have some money are pensioners and other categories of persons who receive government grants. Add to these a few teachers, nurses, police members, councillors and municipal staff, etc, and that constitutes your local market.
I have witnessed thousands of bags of potatoes going rotten in the farmers' sheds. I have witnessed many ripe chickens which continue feeding for a week or more, thus eating into the profits owing to slow sales because there are no abattoirs to slaughter them for bulk sale.
In the neighbouring towns, where commercial farmers have abattoirs galore, these are not accessible to the black farmer, even for hire, on the pretext that the black farmers' chickens carry diseases. The tragedy of this whole exercise is that this country imports up to 800 000 chickens every month from countries like China and Brazil.
It is not that I am against white farmers. In fact, the IFP deplores the exodus of white farmers to countries like Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda and Kenya. This has eroded our status of being the food basket of the continent. I am only decrying the lack of collaboration by certain role- players in this industry.
Accordingly, more serious attention must be given to black emerging farmers and even to subsistence farmers if we are committed to rural development. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]