Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister, Thoko Didiza, says she is encouraged by the agricultural sector's overall contribution to the country’s job creation drive.
“In the first quarter of 2023, about 888 000 people were employed in primary agriculture, up 3% quarter-to-quarter and 5% year-on-year. This is well above the long-term agricultural employment of 780 000,” Didiza said.
Didiza said the resilience shown by KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Western Cape in this annual job improvement is encouraging, and speaks to efforts these regions and stakeholders have made to support the agricultural sector.
She noted that the strong production conditions of various field crops, fruits, forestry and aquaculture were behind the improvement in agricultural jobs in the first quarter, mainly in the three provinces. Other provinces experienced production challenges that weighed on employment at the start of the year.
While crop planting in different areas of the country was delayed due to excessive rains, and farmers facing high input costs and persistent load shedding, the Minister said the outlook for the sector is still positive.
“Various government interventions to ease the load shedding burden on farmers, such as the launch of the Agro-Energy Fund with the Land Bank, load curtailment by Eskom and the expansion of the diesel rebate to the food value chain will have a positive impact.
“Through government’s Crop Estimate Committee, we estimate that the 2022/23 commercial maize harvest will be at about 15.9 million tonnes, 3% higher than the 2021/22 season's harvest and the third-largest harvest on record. In addition, the soybeans harvest is estimated at a record 2.8 million tonnes and the sugar cane crop will likely increase by 3% to 18.5 million tonnes in 2023/24,” Didiza said. – SAnews.gov.za
