MEC encourages community members to plant own food
"Let us till the land and produce food for our people," MEC Vusi Shongwe urged local residents on Tuesday at the commemoration of World Food Day and launch of the 2018 ploughing season.
BOSCHFONTEIN – The Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs invited emerging farmers, farmer representative structures and other stakeholders from across the province to attend the a World Food Day event at Boschfontein Community Hall on Tuesday.
Besides inspiring the attendees, the department also donated implements such as wheelbarrows, spades and hosepipes to assist households and small-scale farmers.
Nkomazi Local Municipality mayor, Johan Mkhatshwa, and the Chief of Magogeni, Zwide Mkhatshwa, were in attendance. The dignitaries also had the opportunity to visit farms in the area.
The event highlighted this year’s World Food Day theme, “Our actions are our future. A #ZeroHungerWorld by 2030 is possible”.
Shongwe advised rural communities and farmers to return to farming as a livelihood. “Our life now is in the soil. Let’s go back to the soil. Plant everything if you can. Stop crying of hunger while you still have soil and your hands. Blame yourself if you go to sleep hungry while there is something you can do,” he stated.
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To support emerging farmers, the provincial government launched the Masibuyele Emasimini programme in 2005 to encourage households to use their backyards and fields for household food production. It aimed to provide support by giving machinery, technical and advisory services to poor communities.
In 2017, the programme was renamed Phezukomkhono Mlimi.
The current programme still aims to assist emerging farmers and ordinary households in order to help fight hunger, rural poverty, create economic opportunities and ensure food security at subsistence level.
The intervention strategy hopes to mobilise and encourage people to return to using agricultural land for their own food production.
“As government, we are reasserting our commitment to agriculture. We are renewing our pledge to work together towards the day when no man, woman or child goes to sleep hungry. We want to win the fight against hunger and I think that, with determination, tenacity and will, it can be done,” Shongwe stated.
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He said that coordination between stakeholders in the industry could be achieved through awareness and the implementation of plans that support food security initiatives.
