Agriculture gears up for charter
July 21, 2004
By Nicky Smith and Dirk De Vynck
Johannesburg - The agricultural industry yesterday welcomed the black economic empowerment (BEE) framework for the sector, to be launched in East London on Monday, although there was still concern about the lack of BEE in the value chain.
Johann Kirsten, the head of the food price monitor committee, said that a lot of work had been done to tie the various threads together, although BEE in the value chain was not attended to. "It's not just about land reform," he said.
The launch of the empowerment framework on Monday follows President Thabo Mbeki's announcement in his state of the nation address that the department of agriculture would publish by this month an agriBEE framework for public comment.
The framework has been developed to guide BEE in the agricultural sector as a key component of implementing equitable access and participation.
The approach that has been followed to come up with the framework has included discussions in the agricultural commodity groups, agribusiness groups and the department of agriculture, on an industry-based strategy for growth and broader participation.
The department of agriculture said yesterday the process created a basis for the framework document, which would be open for discussion until the end of October. "We hope there will be consensus among all stakeholders."
Bully Bothma, the chairman of Grain SA, said: "BEE is of utter importance, not only for the SA grain industry, but for the whole agricultural sector."
Grain SA represents about 20 000 farmers, of which about 11 000 are up-and-coming farmers, and 90 percent of grain production in South Africa.
The industry, at a primary producer level, is worth between R20 billion to R30 billion.
Anton Rabe, the chief executive of the Deciduous Fruit Producers' Trust, said empowerment in agriculture was both a reality and a challenge.
He said the fruit industry was putting together its own charter within the agriBEE framework. He said the fruit industry would hold a stakeholder conference in Johannesburg next week to shed more light on the fruit industry's charter.
South Africa's fruit industry has a turnover of about R18 billion a year, of which the deciduous fruit industry represents about half.
Johan van Rooyen, the chief executive of the SA Wine and Brandy Company, said it was essential that sector- specific peculiarities in the agricultural sector were dealt with in the draft agriBEE charter.
For example, the needs of an export-orientated farm enterprise would be very different from one focused on servicing the domestic market.
Making the process more complex still was the fact that these specific sector plans would need to link up with existing charters in other sectors.
If this was not done things could become "quite complex and confusing" he said, citing how the financial services charter would feed into and inform the agriBEE charter as a critical support industry.
The agricultural sector and its feeder sectors employ about 1 million people on a formal and informal basis and provide homes for 6 million.
The sector contributes about 4 percent of gross domestic product, and contributes 15 percent if the whole value chain is included.
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