Agriculture
1. Mr A P van der Westhuizen to ask Dr I H Meyer, Minister of Agriculture:
In relation to extension services provided by his Department to producers:
(a) How many (i) land-reform farms and (ii) emerging farms benefit from extension services, (b) what services does this include, (c) how does the provision of such services contribute to the commercial success of farmers in these categories, (d) what is the percentage of (i) land-reform-farm and (ii) emerging-farm projects that are commercially viable in the province receive support from his Department, (e) how does this compare with the national rate, and (f) how many workers are employed on these commercially viable farms?
- (i) To date for the last 5 years we have financially supported approximately 143 farms.
(ii) There have been 2 855 farm visits and 3 241 household food gardens in the last 5 years in the province.
- The following services are included:
- Irrigation scheduling to save water.
- Impact and management of climate change
- Breeding and animal production
- Pasture and field management
- Marketing and adding value to products.
- Financial and production record-keeping
- Weed and pest management.
- Farm and resource management
- Mechanization management
- Management of home gardens
- Agri-processing services
- Business Development
- Marketing of Agricultural Produce
- There are several theories to define success. It should be mentioned that the outcome and impact of some inputs on long-term crop businesses can only be determined in the medium to long term. During 2023, the Department carried out an external evaluation of the success of Land Reform farms that had been supported by the Department for the past 5 years. The results after using 39 indicators show a success rate of 83%.
- The Department has supported 143 projects since 2019/20 – 2022/23, of which the external evaluation on land reform farms showed a success rate of 83%.
- Unfortunately, our Department is not aware of any official evaluation at a national level.
- The number of workers on the farms is uncertain, but for the past financial year 2022/23, 650 permanent and 1 044 part-time jobs were created across various commodities and those numbers fluctuates, given the seasonality of the agricultural sector.
