By Nangamso Mabindla
20 April 2005

EMERGING farmers gathered in Buffalo City to discuss the many challenges facing the sector, including that of poverty eradication.

Addressing the congress held in Bhisho by the Eastern Cape branch of the National African Farmers Union (Nafu) on 20 April, Buffalo City Mayor Sindisile Maclean emphasised the importance of the meeting as it dealt with food security - an issue affecting all the people of the province.

"I do not need to labour the point of the twin challenges confronting us: job creation and poverty alleviation," he said. "This ultimately boils down to the challenge to feed our people, and farmers play a pivotal role."

Black emerging farmers had a big role to play in the eradication of poverty because they could identify with the challenge. "As descendants of the trauma of land dispossession, marginalisation and being hewers of wood and drawers water, the emerging farmers need to start working with us to overcome these challenges," Maclean added.

Nafu Eastern Cape represents emerging farmers across the province and has six district unions covering the different municipal districts: Amatole, Cacadu, Chris Hani, OR Tambo, Ukhahlamba and Alfred Nzo.

The Nafu congress identified challenges facing the farming communities, including:

• ensuring district structures have the capacity and skills to deal directly with farmers and their problems;
• approaching the province for more financial support of the agricultural sector;
• training and empowering emerging farmers; and
• ensuring emerging farmers were kept up to date on all relevant information.

Participants at the congress urged both provincial and local government to support their efforts. One such area of support was the opening of a R12-million market in Umthatha by the Eastern Cape's Department of Agriculture.

Maclean pointed out that Buffalo City too was "looking at the operations of our municipal market with an eye to creating for it a more pivotal role as a profitable cost-driver".

Buffalo City is, in partnership with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Traditional Affairs, working on 27 upliftment projects targeting the farming communities, Maclean said.

These developments are run under the Umqokoza programme, a national programme that is coordinated locally by the municipalities.

Maclean highlighted some of these projects, including the Lima (cultivate) project in Smiling Informal Settlement on the N2 to East London, and cooperative in Mngqesha near King Williams Town.

The Lima project is a community project of older people involved in poultry production, while the Mngqesha cooperative is made up of 70 community members who grow vegetables to sell to local stores on 200 hectares of land.