Eastern Cape Rural Development and Agrarian Reform MEC, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, has announced that his department will inject R5.7 million into the lucrative deciduous fruit industry to expand production hectarage.
Qoboshiyane said this will benefit the “land reform farms owned by black farmers as part of the agriculture economic transformation strategy”.
He made the announcement during a visit to Jourbetina in the Langkloof on Tuesday, where he met with farmers before joining them to harvest some of their apples destined for both the export and local market.
Qoboshiyane said he was happy with the work that he had witnessed, where “emerging farmers” and commercial farmers were working together in the area.
“We are putting more than R5.6 million this year into these farms to ensure that we give support to our farmers to protect the produce you are seeing here,” he said in a statement.
Qoboshiyane said his department was supporting black farmers who were doing excellent work in “land reform farms”.
“We decided to combine emerging black farmers with commercial farmers because there must be a transfer of knowledge and skills and the creation of markets. If we can take this whole land under full production we can create employment sustainability,” said Qoboshiyane.
He added that the local land ownership in the area was concerning.
“We need to be concerned about the land ownership here. We made available R11 million to buy shares for black farmers in the Du Toit packhouse. We would like to see that growing,” Qoboshiyane said.
He said, “4% of land owned by black people is absolutely nothing.”
“We need our farmers to grow; we need them to work together with commercial farmers. We need this agriculture economic transformation strategy to work so that we can put these farms under production once again,” Qoboshiyane said.
The department has signed a memorandum of agreement with Deciduous Fruit Development Chamber to assist with economic transformation of the sector in the province.
The MEC said that the three “land reform farms”, that were harvesting their fruits from a combined 175 hectares, expect to yield a combined 6 431 tons of deciduous fruit to be exported to the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Russia, Far East, Middle East countries and Indian Ocean Island, with the United Kingdom taking larger volumes of apples from the province.
“To further drive the expansion of the sector to create jobs, the department is joining forces with the Jobs fund to establish a total of 316 hectares of deciduous fruit over four years and to create 305 permanent jobs,” the MEC said.
Part of the transformation program is to expand hectares under commercial production in Misgund Small Farmers Trust, Tulpieskraal Workers Trust and JD Rovon farms to help the farmers increase their yield and profits from the sale of their apples, pears, plums to local and international markets.
Misgund Small Farmer’s Trust chairperson, Booi Jacobs said: “We pride ourselves on the fact that these apples are exported to various countries. Pink Lady apples are one of the greatest commodities for our trust, it brings us most dividends than other cultivars and it is vital that it stays longer in the three prior to harvesting to maintain its color.”
About 49% of the deciduous fruit produced by Eastern Cape farmers is exported, 18% is sold locally and 34% is processed into various products.
(Statement: Supplied)
