Deputy Speaker, has the Minister held any discussions or workshops with agriculture value-chain organisations, organised agricultural organisations like the National African Farmers Union, Nafu, AgriSA, and the Transvaal Agricultural Union, with a view to increasing the number of job opportunities in the sector? If so, what are the outcomes of such discussions or workshops?
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Hon Deputy Speaker, the question is very valid indeed, and we'd like to inform the hon member that we have signed delivery agreements with the various unions in our sector, in agriculture, forestry, as well as in fisheries. Our different commodity groups have also been consulted.
We are particularly working with Grain South Africa to address the unintended consequences of the surplus maize we have in our country. We have also consulted and are working with different commodity groups to look at job losses and the future potential of stemming the tide of job losses in the industry.
We would like to say that with the National Agricultural Farmers Union we are developing a package for the development of smallholder as well as subsistence farmers. Instead of black farmers being part of the informal industry or informal job creation sector of agriculture, we wish to graduate them from subsistence farming to smallholder farmers, and then, eventually, to commercial farmers. Thank you for that very good question, hon member.