The first day kicked off with a lineup of impressive keynote speakers including Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities; Senzeni Zokwana, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries; Nhlanhla Nene and the executive director for Africa, World Bank, Seydou Bouda among others.
African agriculture has been facing significant challenges in terms of the severe drought that has left commercial and small-scale farmers as well as agribusinesses in a compromising financial position. A continuous thread that ran throughout the keynotes, however, are the recurring challenges that the industry has been facing for years – challenges compounded by a lack of access to finance and investment.
The agriculture industry has been characterised by political uncertainty, land reform, lack of access to markets as well as finance for emerging farmers, lack of skills, and labour issues just to name a few.
On both a provincial and national level, agriculture has been identified as a key sector for investment and development due to the significant opportunities the industry poses to drive for economic and socio-economic growth. Agriculture is back at the top of the list on development agendas.
Several sectors are in particular need of attention in order to create a sustainable agriculture industry that can make a significant contribution to the economy while addressing other key issues including food security, hunger, poverty, and inequality. One of these sectors is agro-processing.
Increased investment in and development of the agro-processing sector appears to enjoy more focus. The Department of Trade and Industry, for example, is working on creating a dedicated agro-processing incentive scheme to attract investment in the sector. As one of the economy’s key labour intensive sectors, agro-processing is recognised to hold massive opportunity especially regarding the creation of employment opportunities and empowerment.
Gauteng is making significant investments into developing agro-processing infrastructure, developing skills and supporting food production. According to Winde, agro-processing is an important sector for the Western Cape as well. He specifically mentioned Project Khulisa, the provincial government’s economic growth strategy, in which agro-processing has been identified as a key growth sector with the potential to add thousands of jobs and bring in billions of rands.
Increased investment is critical to developing this sector. With the significant opportunities locked in the sector, it is necessary to create an investment enabling landscape. According to Winde, we need to start speaking about an investment ecosystem. While various provincial governments have started to invest, launched initiatives, and started to build and develop the sector, much more needs to be done to bring it to its full potential.
