Not everything is cool in the agricultural sector, a new book argues

By Edward tsumele, Editor, CITYLIFE/ARTS

This week a leader in the cultural and creative sector, known for his activism and calling out officials at the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and its agencies out whenever they go out of line got an impassioned plea from a leader of the embattled Creative and Cultural Industry Federation of South Africa (CIFSA).

“Good day sir. I hope you are good. We are planning a CIFSA Gauteng General Creative Practitioners’ engagement. Our issue is that our own province don’t support any of us and we believe this meeting will lead us having a memorandum that we will send to the MEC office(sic) and copy one to the Premiers (sic). We are tired now of being used,” the message read.

Now most will remember how this federation for the longest of time was supported, almost unconditionally by DSAC, having money dished out to it by officials without asking questions reportedly to create programmes and structures that would strengthen the sector. None of that of course happened, but the money disappeared into the pockets of the so-called leaders of this now doomed and abandoned federation, which is in fact being pursued relentlessly by Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton Mckenzie through a forensic investigation. In other words, public funds were dished to a federation that did not have a form of accountability. But fun enough CIFAS did not transfer money from the coffers of the state, but officials did, knowing very well that the funds were being misdirected to individuals, the so-called leaders, instead of towards the strengthening of the sector.

The point is CIFSA without alleged political protection form the previous ministers, and certainly without the protection of the complicit officials now that there is a new Sherrif in town, McKenzie, has been left vulnerable and naked and therefore desperation has set in.

Here however, I am not talking about CIFSA and its shenanigans that saw R30 million being abused since the federation was formed and yet no evidence of work delivered within the sector exists.

Instead, I was reminded of CIFSA’s issues when this week I received a book to review titled The Uncomfortable Truth About South Africa’s Agriculture from non-fiction publisher Tracey McDonald Publishers.

Now you may as well ask what is the connection between CIFSA’s issues in the creative sector and a book about agriculture -two different sectors of the economy.

Reading this book, and I recommend that you do, you will be surprised to find out that the issues that stalk the so-called sector federations are common across all sectors of the economy, including the fights and division among the federations.

For example, the authors of The Uncomfortable Truth About South Africa’s Agriculture, Wandile Sihlobo and Johann Kirsten, well known academics and experts in every thing agriculture in this country, lay bare the divisions among a plethora of federations purporting to represent the agriculture sector and its product subsectors, unfortunately in most cases based on race lines, ideological differences and even greed.

If you thought the fissures in organizational unity in the creative and cultural sector is the mother of all, you will need to read this book to understand how big the divisions are in the agriculture sector as well. There are so many federations and associations, representing the industry as well as commodities produced by the different subsectors that if you are left confused as an outsider, you will be justified.

“Without purging the sector of its politics and divisions, mirrored in the various parallel farmer organisations, it is unlikely that the country will reach sufficient buy-in from all stakeholders, and the likelihood of success for adequate policy formulation and effective implementation will therefore be limited. The chances of creating a united, inclusive and prosperous agricultural sector are becoming slimmer by the day. That is the uncomfortable truth,” conclude the authors. This is a chapter that looks at the main players with regards to associations and federations that represent different interests in the sector, some of which seem to have been formed for the purpose of receiving statutory levies.

The authors also zoom in on how black farmers are receiving a raw deal when it comes to government support, something that is taken for granted that a democratic government would support black farmers entering the sector in the name of creating inclusion. That is however not so.

The authors advance various reasons for this, including the slow pace of decision making by officials, unethical and corrupt behaviour of officials of the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, and middling politicians yearning to lay their hands on farmland that has been bought from white farmers for the benefit of black farmers. The picture painted here is scary. One other issue that the authors believe hamper the growth of black farmers entering the sector is the fact that the farms that have been allocated to them by government are on the basis of a 30-year lease. That creates problems when farmers want to borrow money from financial institutions to expand their operations or pay for improvements on the farm. And believe me you, even the state bank created to fund farming operations, the Land Bank will not advance a loan to farmers that do not have a title deed as security against the loan.

And according to the book the attitude of officials in the Depart of Agriculture and Rural Development is also not helpful when it comes to expediting the rate of inclusion by new entries in the agriculture sector. The issue of professionalism and the quality of qualifications in the different directorate is also called into question by the authors.

And so in short, what seems to be the issue is not the lack of land to hand over to new players in the sector, in fact land the government has since acquired from white farmers is plenty and actually 25 person of land has been already acquired by government for redistribution to black people, but implementation is the issue here, the author argue.

“From the outside it looks like the Department of Agriculture is overstaffed and has elements of inefficiency. With this bloated bureaucracy we continue to hear complaints in talks with farmers about the slow pace of and ambiguous roles of employees. All this leads to inefficiency and frustrations for farmers like Ronald and Enoch (new black farmers) who are eager to build their farming activities,” the authors point out.

And so just like in the creative and cultural sector, not everything is cool in the agriculture sector and therefore cool and ethical minds in government need to intervene and make the sector more inclusive and therefore grow the economy of the country instead of having officials in the agriculture sector that are indifferent and unethical. Also having greed and middling politicians who want to freelance as farmers is not helping matters really.