Today during a debate in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), the FF Plus pointed out that the ANC government has continued to fail women in the agricultural sector, despite its many promises and years of making “empowerment statements”.
The theme of the debate was: “Expanding agricultural and rural development opportunities for rural women in South Africa”.
Over the last 29 years, government has been unable to implement an effective policy to empower women in this sector to successfully and sustainably contribute to agricultural production.
Almost without exception, all the successful women in agriculture have achieved what they have under their own steam or with support from the private sector.
Over the years, government officials have contributed little more than lip service and trite ANC propaganda to the empowerment of women in the agricultural sector.
The government projects launched during this time were invariably doomed to fail due to corruption, mismanagement and a lack of proper support.
It stands in stark contrast to the female farmers, such as Marilize du Toit, Jeanine Claassen, Alanda van Zyl and Rodene Lampbrecht, who achieved great success without any government aid in a challenging agricultural environment.
The same goes for the many women in rural areas who feed their families through subsistence farming and even market their products on small scale.
These women are a reflection of the example set by Afrikaner women 120 years ago when they literally had to rebuild their family farms from ashes.
They did it without any government aid or a victim mentality. The FF Plus honours them.
The effective empowerment of women in the agricultural sector will remain no more than an illusion under the ANC government, which simply keeps paying lip service to these women while focussing instead on establishing a culture of dependence and entitlement through its racially motivated policy.
South African female farmers deserve better than the ANC.
;
