Malmesbury Agricultural Association by Patricia De Lille
2003-08-07. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for this opportunity to address you tonight.
I consider our farmers to be the lifeblood of our country.
You are the ones that supply us with the food necessary to sustain our growing population.
I know that being a farmer is not always an easy job.
A lot of your success is dependent on forces outside of your control.
In my speech tonight I want to talk about the context in which farming takes place in South Africa.
In speaking about this context I want to outline what ID proposes should be done to give greater support to our agricultural sector.
Agriculture in South Africa has gone through some tough times over the last 10 years.
We have moved from a situation where farmers were given a great deal of support and protection.
This was done through giving farmers access to cheap credit enabling them to grow their farms into large and economically viable farming operations.
Farmers, particularly wheat farmers also enjoyed protection through tariffs that allowed us to compete locally with other farmers around the world.
Over the last ten years this situation has drastically changed.
In line with the government's policy of opening the economy to the forces of globalisation, our tariffs have been drastically reduced and our farmers have had to compete against the rest of the world.
Unfortunately though, this competition has not been on equal terms as other countries provide massive subsidies to their farmers.
The industrialised world gives their farmers in excess of U$ 300 billion a year in subsidies.
These subsidies completely distort the world agricultural markets and make it impossible for developing countries to compete on the global market.
To my mind, the single biggest thing that the industrialised world can do to help the developing world is to get rid of their subsidies.
Obviously this is not something that the ID or even the government can promise to do as it is dependent on global political forces.
What we can say, however, is that we fully support any political effort that is taken to force these countries to reduce their agricultural subsidies.
It is also with great dismay that we witnessed the recent breakdown in WTO talks in Mexico, as this sets this issue back even further.
There is another force which farmers in South Africa have to contend with that is outside of your control and has been since the first crops were planted over 6000 years ago in the Middle East.
This force is the weather.
The one thing that has changed over the last 6000 years with regards to the weather though, is that humans are starting to have a dramatic impact on it.
The drought that you encountered earlier this year, which devastated a lot of your crops, is entirely in line with the predictions being put forward regarding Climate Change due to global warming.
Climate Change is becoming more of a reality around the world, and in South Africa the expected impacts are particularly worrying for farmers.
In the water scarce country that we live in, climate change will make us even drier.
We need to prepare ourselves for these impacts and government and the rest of the world needs to provide the necessary support to enable us to adapt to these changing weather conditions.
Climate change is unfortunately a global problem which can only be solved by the world working together on this.
As South Africa though, we need to find ways in which we can reduce our high greenhouse gas emissions so that we can show leadership on this issue and ultimately force the United States and other industrialised countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and reduce their emissions.
I have spoken about the global forces that impact on our agriculture and what action needs to be taken there, but now I want to look at the national context and see what we can directly do to support this sector more.
Unfortunately it seems that the ANC is presently fixated on the industrial sector as the primary way to develop our economy.
It is certainly true that industry does have an important role to play in South Africa's development.
Agriculture, however, has an equally important role to play in terms of food self-sufficiency and employment.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be recognised by the present government.
Over half a million jobs have been shed in agriculture in the past ten years which has compounded our massive unemployment problem.
This has also led to people migrating out of the rural areas to come and live in the poverty that the cities only have to offer them.
The vision that the ID has in terms of agriculture is to get people working the land again and to build up viable rural communities with agriculture as the primary driver.
In order to do this, however, the government needs to put its money where its mouth is.
Far more of the budget needs to be allocated to land redistribution and agriculture support in South Africa.
Land redistribution is somewhat of a dirty word at the moment, particularly given what is currently happening in Zimbabwe.
An orderly land redistribution process with adequate resources being put aside by the government to fund it will ultimately prevent the tragic situation of Zimbabwe from occurring here.
Land redistribution doesn't have to be a threatening process to farmers and we have seen that the current bottleneck in redistributing land is occurring because treasury is not allocating enough money to buy the land that farmers are willing putting up to be sold.
It is not enough to redistribute land though, if you do not provide support both financially and technically for these new farmers to grow their land into a viable farming operation.
On this point, I believe that farmers who have been working the land for so many years and understand the challenges of farming should be enticed by the government to share their expertise.
I know that a lot of our rural areas are also currently characterised by insecurity and suspicion between farmers and farm workers.
Our farmers don't feel safe on their own farms as evidenced by the huge numbers of farm killings that have taken place over the last few years.
This situation needs to be urgently brought under control, and we must find ways of preventing our rural areas from declining into a state of crime ridden poverty.
I believe the only way of doing this in the long term is to pump more resources into our rural areas and for the government to provide the resources that can help partnerships to be formed between farmers and their labourers.
I believe that this is achievable and that as a matter of urgency the government needs to start putting the concerns of the rural areas at the forefront of our development framework.
The Independent Democrats looks forward to working with you on these issues and our hope is for this party to become a medium through which different groupings can formulate shared responses to the problems faced in our rural areas.
You are the ones that supply us with the food necessary to sustain our growing population.
I know that being a farmer is not always an easy job.
A lot of your success is dependent on forces outside of your control.
In my speech tonight I want to talk about the context in which farming takes place in South Africa.
In speaking about this context I want to outline what ID proposes should be done to give greater support to our agricultural sector.
Agriculture in South Africa has gone through some tough times over the last 10 years.
We have moved from a situation where farmers were given a great deal of support and protection.
This was done through giving farmers access to cheap credit enabling them to grow their farms into large and economically viable farming operations.
Farmers, particularly wheat farmers also enjoyed protection through tariffs that allowed us to compete locally with other farmers around the world.
Over the last ten years this situation has drastically changed.
In line with the government's policy of opening the economy to the forces of globalisation, our tariffs have been drastically reduced and our farmers have had to compete against the rest of the world.
Unfortunately though, this competition has not been on equal terms as other countries provide massive subsidies to their farmers.
The industrialised world gives their farmers in excess of U$ 300 billion a year in subsidies.
These subsidies completely distort the world agricultural markets and make it impossible for developing countries to compete on the global market.
To my mind, the single biggest thing that the industrialised world can do to help the developing world is to get rid of their subsidies.
Obviously this is not something that the ID or even the government can promise to do as it is dependent on global political forces.
What we can say, however, is that we fully support any political effort that is taken to force these countries to reduce their agricultural subsidies.
It is also with great dismay that we witnessed the recent breakdown in WTO talks in Mexico, as this sets this issue back even further.
There is another force which farmers in South Africa have to contend with that is outside of your control and has been since the first crops were planted over 6000 years ago in the Middle East.
This force is the weather.
The one thing that has changed over the last 6000 years with regards to the weather though, is that humans are starting to have a dramatic impact on it.
The drought that you encountered earlier this year, which devastated a lot of your crops, is entirely in line with the predictions being put forward regarding Climate Change due to global warming.
Climate Change is becoming more of a reality around the world, and in South Africa the expected impacts are particularly worrying for farmers.
In the water scarce country that we live in, climate change will make us even drier.
We need to prepare ourselves for these impacts and government and the rest of the world needs to provide the necessary support to enable us to adapt to these changing weather conditions.
Climate change is unfortunately a global problem which can only be solved by the world working together on this.
As South Africa though, we need to find ways in which we can reduce our high greenhouse gas emissions so that we can show leadership on this issue and ultimately force the United States and other industrialised countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and reduce their emissions.
I have spoken about the global forces that impact on our agriculture and what action needs to be taken there, but now I want to look at the national context and see what we can directly do to support this sector more.
Unfortunately it seems that the ANC is presently fixated on the industrial sector as the primary way to develop our economy.
It is certainly true that industry does have an important role to play in South Africa's development.
Agriculture, however, has an equally important role to play in terms of food self-sufficiency and employment.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be recognised by the present government.
Over half a million jobs have been shed in agriculture in the past ten years which has compounded our massive unemployment problem.
This has also led to people migrating out of the rural areas to come and live in the poverty that the cities only have to offer them.
The vision that the ID has in terms of agriculture is to get people working the land again and to build up viable rural communities with agriculture as the primary driver.
In order to do this, however, the government needs to put its money where its mouth is.
Far more of the budget needs to be allocated to land redistribution and agriculture support in South Africa.
Land redistribution is somewhat of a dirty word at the moment, particularly given what is currently happening in Zimbabwe.
An orderly land redistribution process with adequate resources being put aside by the government to fund it will ultimately prevent the tragic situation of Zimbabwe from occurring here.
Land redistribution doesn't have to be a threatening process to farmers and we have seen that the current bottleneck in redistributing land is occurring because treasury is not allocating enough money to buy the land that farmers are willing putting up to be sold.
It is not enough to redistribute land though, if you do not provide support both financially and technically for these new farmers to grow their land into a viable farming operation.
On this point, I believe that farmers who have been working the land for so many years and understand the challenges of farming should be enticed by the government to share their expertise.
I know that a lot of our rural areas are also currently characterised by insecurity and suspicion between farmers and farm workers.
Our farmers don't feel safe on their own farms as evidenced by the huge numbers of farm killings that have taken place over the last few years.
This situation needs to be urgently brought under control, and we must find ways of preventing our rural areas from declining into a state of crime ridden poverty.
I believe the only way of doing this in the long term is to pump more resources into our rural areas and for the government to provide the resources that can help partnerships to be formed between farmers and their labourers.
I believe that this is achievable and that as a matter of urgency the government needs to start putting the concerns of the rural areas at the forefront of our development framework.
The Independent Democrats looks forward to working with you on these issues and our hope is for this party to become a medium through which different groupings can formulate shared responses to the problems faced in our rural areas.
