Pretoria - Agriculture is a key job driver and a provider of opportunities for entrepreneurship, says President Jacob Zuma.
“Agriculture is a key job driver and a provider of opportunities for entrepreneurship,” Zuma said while delivering the sixth State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday in Cape Town.
With regard to Fetsa Tlala (End Hunger), government’s Integrated Food Production Initiative aimed at producing enough food to meet the population’s needs, Zuma said the country’s agricultural support programme, is producing brand new exporters.
The first 88 smallholder farmers in the programme supplied the United Nations World Food Programme with 268 tons of maize and beans which were sent to Lesotho last December.
“We expect this number to increase. We will continue to promote our fisheries sector as well, which contributes an estimated 6billion rand to the economy and provides 27 000 jobs,” he said.
Last October, Zuma officially launched Fetsa Tlala in Batlharos outside Kuruman in the Northern Cape. Through Fetsa Tlala, government intends to assist small-scale and smallholder producers to place at least one million hectares of arable land under production by 2019 across the country.
Government has made available R2 billion to support Fetsa Tlala. - SAnews.gov.za
