Tina Joemat- Pettersson acknowledges that SA will not reach its goal of transformation without the help of organised agriculture
Minister holds out olive branch to white commercial farmers
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WYNDHAM HARTLEY
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Published:
2009/06/19 06:23:08 AM
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Briefing the media yesterday in the wake of her budget vote on Wednesday, Joemat-Pettersson said that without partnerships with organised agriculture, SA could achieve neither the target of moving from being a net importer of food to being a net exporter, nor that of putting 30% of farmland into black hands by 2014.
She said her department’s mandate was to turn SA into a net exporter of food and “we recognise that without organised agriculture we cannot have a turnaround strategy for agriculture in this country”.
The minister also moved to reassure the agricultural sector that assistance would not be confined to subsistence farmers and that commercial agriculture was vital to the department’s turnaround strategy.
The result was her acknowledgement that “we need to work with commercial agriculture”. She said there was goodwill and that creative solutions for white farmers would be sought in the form of joint ventures with black farmers.
“If 30% of agricultural land is to be in black hands, then there has to be an alternative for white farmers because we do not seek to drive them from the land,” Joemat-Pettersson said.
While her predecessor, Lulu Xingwana, frequently earned the ire of organised agriculture, JoematPettersson said it was clear that not all farmers brutalised their farm workers and that not all farmers could be found guilty on the basis of what some had done.
She said there were incidents of farm workers’ human rights being abused, and this would be dealt with where it occurred. The government would be strict in enforcing the security of tenure of farm workers and their conditions of employment.
Joemat-Pettersson said she intended to bring all the agricultural unions closer to one another and closer to the government because there was too much distance between these parties.
The state was only one stakeholder in agriculture, and in the past the relationships between the traditional unions of organised agriculture and the emerging farmers’ union had been overlooked. “They have to move closer together,” she said.
hartleyw@bdfm.co.za