Chairperson, Minister Joemat-Pettersson and all Ministers present here, Deputy Minister Mulder and all Deputy Ministers present here, colleagues and comrades, director-general and officials from the department you are leading, chairpersons and chief executive officers of the state- owned enterprises, industry players in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors of our economy, my daughter Litha, who is seated among us, and also the Minister's two sons, who are also seated among us here, fellow South Africans, comrades and friends, on 26 June 1955, the only Congress of the People declared among other things:
The land shall be shared among those who work it!
Restrictions of landownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land redivided 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.
Informed by the above time-tested scientific assertion 56 years ago, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries adopted its vision of "striving for a united and prosperous sector" alongside a mission that seeks "to lead and support sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries and promotion of rural development in South Africa".
Allow me, as we debate in the month of our heroes, to dedicate my speech to an ununiformed soldier of our people, Ibutho Mthuthuzeli Malaba Makhuphula, waseDora [from Dora], New Brighton in Port Elizabeth, whom we just buried on 16 April 2011. Like himself at the time of his death, his family continues to languish in a state of squalor and poverty.
This being Heroes' Month, we remember Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Solomon Mahlangu, Siphiwe Mthimkhulu and Topsy Madaka, who vanished without a trace on 14 April 1982. The only remains of Siphiwe Mthimkhulu to be buried some 20 years later was his hair. As we celebrate their contributions and sacrifices during this month of heroes, let us never lose sight of our historic mission, that of building a united, nonracial, nonsexist democracy in a prosperous South Africa.
Chairperson, with its theme of "safe food for all through decent jobs", agriculture continues to have great potential to assist the ANC-led government in the fight against poverty and unemployment, as it plays a critical role in producing food for the country in the subsistence areas of the rural communities, and in providing jobs for the unskilled and semiskilled citizens of our country. Our role as an activist Parliament is unambiguously that of ensuring the success of such deliverables through robust oversight.
Factors of agricultural production are the basic inputs that are used to produce the goods and services that are derived from agriculture itself. These important factors are natural resources such as land and water, capital, labour, entrepreneurship, technology and innovation through technology that can sometimes be embodied in capital and entrepreneurship. Without these factors, there can be no effective and sustainable agricultural production.
Poverty, household food insecurity, and environmental degradation continue to be the key concepts underpinning the discourse within South Africa, and have been recognised by most developing countries as critical development challenges that are given highest priority in the development agenda.
Colleagues, in order to address poverty, inequality and high unemployment, among other things, Cabinet developed a new economic growth plan in 2010. The aim of the New Growth Path, the NGP, is to target the country's limited capital and capacity at activities that maximise the creation of decent job opportunities through macro and micro economic policies, in order to create a favourable overall environment and to support more labour-absorbing activities. The main indicators of success will be the number and quality of jobs created; the rate, labour intensity and composition of economic growth; equity, manifested as lower income inequality; and environmental outcomes.
The agricultural value chain has been identified as one of the key job drivers in the NGP. Agriculture in South Africa accounts for approximately 8% of the country's total employment, which is a far smaller supply of labour than in other developing economies and emerging markets, where one in five people work in agriculture. This low figure may be attributed to the decline in the number of commercial farms, diversification like gaming activities, the introduction of advanced technologies, and increases in the cost of labour and production inputs, alongside the cost of doing business in our country.
The creation of decent jobs is one of the main foci of the country's NGP, in which the agricultural value chain is one of the job drivers. In terms of the NGP, jobs in agriculture will be in smallholder schemes in industrial products, the export of wine and fruit, as well as extension services. The key integrated policies will be developed to link smallholder schemes to land reform and provide integrated support, address high input costs, and support farmworker organisations and growth in the commercial sector by addressing price fluctuations in maize and wheat in particular.
Fellow South Africans, this whole programme must indeed be seen to be meeting the Millennium Development Goal targets of halving unemployment and poverty by the year 2014, goals to which this country is a signatory.
Hon Minister and director-general, in meeting the above targets, we have taken note of the department's draft Integrated Growth and Development Plan, the IGDP, which is a 20-year plan, 2011 to 2031, and how it seeks to promote agriculture and rural development in South Africa. I quote from the plan:
The primary purpose of the IGDP is to achieve the transformation and restructuring of the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors that are currently dominated by a small number of large companies, and to ensure that constraints experienced in the areas of input supply, production and marketing are addressed cost-effectively and in a timely manner.
In addressing equity and transformation in the sector, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, collaborating with the Department of Trade and Industry and the agricultural industry, plans to assess and refine the Agri-BEE Charter, to address shortcomings including publication in terms of section 9 of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003, and fully implement it by the middle of next year. The IGDP further proposes a number of new strategies and policies, and assessment and implementation of existing ones, to address and strengthen integration, growth, export potential and competitiveness of the sector, focusing more on commodity-specific planning and production.
To ensure growth in the sector and integration of smallholder farmers into mainstream markets, the IGDP proposes the implementation, in five years' time, of an agricultural input coupon programme to subsidise the most expensive agricultural inputs for production systems that contribute the most to food security. In addition, the IGDP proposes incentivising the establishment of a public-private partnership to improve access to information, training and capacity-building, mentorship and entrepreneurial activity.
As the committee, we feel that we seriously need to engage with this area that talks to subsidies and tariffs, so that we have a department that not only attends negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, but also actively participates.
Furthermore, the IGDP also proposes the implementation of an agricultural academy programme and development services centres, which will prioritise skills development, and decentralise support services respectively.
In this regard forestry and fisheries fall far behind in transforming our economy, though we do have the forestry charter, which was expected to be implemented at the beginning of this year. As a result of this situation, fisheries has since become a cartel, only benefiting the large few in the industry. Due to this situation, fronting in the fisheries industry continues to be the order of the day.
The conditions of employment leave a lot to be desired, with fisherfolk left to die with no one able to account for them when they fall ill or die on the deep sea. This is due to the casual nature of the jobs offered, as these are not registered employees. We call on the industry to desist from such unscrupulous activities, where it is profit at any cost, regardless of people's lives. We also call on the industry to stop marginalising our black people with regard to fishing permits, where they are paid peanuts, which is daylight robbery. Have they not had enough of daylight robbery of our land when the colonisers arrived on our shores led by that bandit called Jan van Riebeeck? [Interjections.] I wonder whether you are part of that bandit regime of Jan van Riebeeck.
Chairperson, despite the constitutional mandate of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, in practice very few organs of state adhere to the Act. Hence there are so many failed government programmes due to a lack of well-co-ordinated, integrated efforts to ensure maximum benefits and returns. In terms of agricultural and rural development, failed land reform projects are a classic example of this challenge. This issue is acknowledged in the IGDP and also by the Presidency's National Planning Commission.
Coming to poaching and stock theft, we are confronted with life-threatening experiences. Because of shortages of SA Police Service and SA National Defence Force members we cannot manage such ills in our society. As a result, stock theft not only accounts for losses of some R400 million per annum to smallholder farmers, but lives of people are also in danger. Maybe it is time we call on communities, in support of their own livelihoods, to form their own street and area committees as a collaborative effort that would assist our security agencies.
Time is not on my side. Chairperson, it cannot be acceptable that today, 17 years into our democratic Parliament, the majority of a minute number of black winegrowers is only limited to the primary production level, where they grow grapes only to supply raw material, in the majority of cases to white cellars, for processing, bottling and labelling, and marketing. We ask ourselves, as the ANC-led Parliament exercising our role on oversight, what continues to be the role of Wines of South Africa and the SA Wine Industry Trust, respectively, as these are instruments aimed at assisting and growing black winegrowers?
I don't have time for the section I had on extension services. Director- general, chairpersons of state-owned enterprises and CEOs, Ncera Farms continues to be an albatross around our necks, with no governance or systems in place. The portfolio committee is not impressed with this entity and the matter is urgent.
Research and training advances can help reduce costs, increase production, protect natural resources and improve sufficiency in our systems.
The last point I want to relay has to do with climate change and disaster management. As South Africa hosts the United Nations Conference of the Parties 17, we need to be combat ready, able to showcase our abilities in climate change mitigation and adaptation in the agricultural sector. We must be aware that agriculture, forestry and fisheries are most affected by climate change and changing weather patterns, to the point that this directly affects food security in our country and the world over. As stakeholders, we are therefore called upon to drive and develop strategies towards mitigating and adapting to these climatic conditions.
Chairperson, we are going to hold the department and the Ministry accountable for, among other areas, the following: ensuring that it provides Parliament with regular quarterly reports and updates on the implementation of its programmes; meeting its implementation targets of policies and establishment of governance structures; monitoring expenditure and ensuring that its activities produce value for money; encouraging and promoting intergovernmental relations and integrated approaches through the IGDP in tackling issues such as food security, job creation and climate change; reviewing and aligning existing legislation and policies that govern the sector; and ensuring that programmes are in line with other state policies, such as the New Growth Path, the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 and the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme.
In conclusion, 50 years later, a new democratic South African government declares: The land is being shared, albeit slow progress is being made, among those who work it. Restrictions of landownership on a racial basis are gradually coming to an end, and all the land is being shared by those ...
The ANC supports the R4,7 billion Budget Vote 26. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]