Eastern Cape Premier and DRDAR MEC to celebrate bumber havest that grew by 100%

EASTERN Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane with MEC for the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (DRDAR) Nonkqubela Pieters will celebrate the 100% growth bumper haverst of maize in the province tomorrow in Ntabankulu. Through the inclusive cropping strategy, in 2022/23 financial year, with an investment of R142.8 million, the department supported farmers to plant 28 529 ha across the province. The favourable weather conditions during the season created an ideal environment for agricultural activities, leading to a significant increase in the number of hectares planted. Farmers were able to take advantage of these favourable conditions and maximised their planting activities covering a larger area than initially planned, resulting in 30 117.9 ha planted.

This resulted to a jump of the provincial yield by more than 10 000 tons from the previous year 20 000, a total of 10 000 tons come from enterprises where DRDAR has invested. The Premier will lead the have Last year at Lufafa village in Ntabankulu, wherein 750 hectares of land from 50 family members were planted grain. The department invested about R700 000 for production inputs and the other amount was contributed by the beneficiaries resulting to an estimated yield of 4/5 tons per ha (minimum of 3 000- 3 750 tons in the area under production) that will be harvested. The department embarked on this strategy to formally partner with communities, traditional leaders and both local and district municipalities in order to strengthen the success of the initiative as it planned to roll-out the strategy to other communities targeting the participation of youth, females and other disaggregated groups.

The department is responding to the national imperatives, where agriculture was identified as the key economic driver projected to improve the GDP and turn the economy around. Key to this is to emulate this model in order to create a rural agro-processing value addition programme that will see rural farmers benefiting in the whole value chain. Apart from the harvesting, there will be handing over of agricultural cropping equipment and machinery and livestock equipment. Youth led enterprises to benefit are Qhamaninande Project, which is a mixed farming enterprise that has 500 beneficiaries in the cropping programme. They will get harvesting, tractor and mechanization equipment.

Another is Lenon Green, a cropping enterprise, in Bizana that benefits 200 people that will receive irrigation equipment. Furthermore , a total of 26 industrial and overlock machines will be handed over to sewing enterprises to maximize their profits and improve the quality of their garments.

Members of the media are invited to attend this event, which will take place as follows:

Venue: Lufafa village, Ntabankulu

Date: 04 July 2023

Time: 9h00

Source: Government of South Africa