(Parliamentary Budget Vote Debate: Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development)
A nation that cherishes agriculture, cherishes its future.
However, looking after its farmers is clearly not a priority for the ANC government and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.
The Department follows a back-to-front approach when it comes to addressing problems and tackling projects.
Land-reform projects, the Agriculture and Agro-Processing Master Plan, the Cannabis Master Plan in all its facets, the AgriBEE fund, and the National Rural Youth Service Corps (Narysec) programme are just a few of the projects that cannot seem to get off the ground.
The root of the problem is the ANC, because the ANC approaches everything in the interest of ideology instead of the economy. As long as the Minister and her Department do not make this mind shift, all farmers and, consequently, the entire economy will remain on the losing side.
The Department's budget speaks of misguided priorities as important programmes are underfunded, while even more funds are allocated to meaningless programmes and projects.
Accordingly, the administration programme receives a greater budget than the agricultural production programme. The main aim of this programme is to oversee livestock production, game farming, animal and plant health, natural resources and disaster management. But it only receives about 14% of the entire budget.
Despite the programme's important role in promoting agricultural production, managing bio-security and sector-related risks, plant and animal diseases, and plagues, including disasters, its budget allocation appears to have stagnated and will decrease by an average of 1% over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
This allocation is a serious cause for concern in light of, among other things, the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which lead to the ban on exports.
China, the biggest importer of South African wool, banned the importation of all wool due to the outbreak. The wool industry is a R5 billion industry and cannot afford this type of ban.
Entities, like the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), are underfunded and underutilised as the Department would rather make use of external service providers.
The research conducted by the ARC on climate changes, weather patterns on our coastlines and various other factors could have helped to possibly avert the recent disaster in KwaZulu Natal or, at the very least, limit the damage. If only the Department had trusted its own entity.
The ANC's misguided priorities are to the detriment of food security and jeopardise South Africa's future.
South Africa and its people deserve better than the ANC government.
