Minister of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, announced that she had met food processors, leaders in the fruit and grains industry, agricultural trading groups, and farmer associations on Saturday to ensure the availability of food supplies and farming input supplies for the country, amid the ongoing Russia and Ukraine conflict.
Didiza said this consultation is part of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team tasked with risk mitigation for the South African economy during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The engagement evaluated the availability of food supplies and farming input supplies for the coming months, she said.
Didiza added that there is no need for the members of the public to panic about any food shortages.
“We have gained enough understanding of our available food supplies and are confident that there is sufficient supplies for SA and the neighbouring Southern African Custom Union (SACU) countries for the foreseeable future, and therefore no need to panic that the country could experience shortages.
Didiza said there will be transparency about the food situation with industry stakeholders should the need arise.
“The industry stakeholders have committed to sharing information about the food production conditions going forward, which will enable better planning and response should such be needed in future.”
The Minister said issues that cause constraints to agricultural growth will be addressed by the Department of Agriculture and the relevant industry stakeholders.
“The industry role-players also reflected on the need to drive long-term inclusive growth in the sector. We will follow-up on this call by addressing constraints to agriculture growth, including access to funding for new entrant farmers, crop and animal disease occurrences, and improving domestic fertilizer capacity.”
According to Didiza the long-term and focused interventions are contained in the Agriculture and the Agro-processing Master Plan that the Department will soon launch with social partners.
-THE MERCURY
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