Turning agriculture into �a way of life

By ROUX VAN ZYL

Business Editor

HALFWAY into the financial year the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture has

spent 57 percent of its R624 million annual

budget.

The department revealed in its half-year

budget review in Bhisho yesterday that it has

to a large extent focused on the rural areas,

especially Transkci, where its tlagsinp massive food programme aims to boost food

security and revive the agriculiural economy.

Although spending on this project is going

ahead full steam, a recent visit by Dispatch Business to the Mhlontlo Municipality near Tsolo showed that some of the massive food programme projects were collapsing as soon

as government funding ended. Head of department Amon Nyondo said

their challenge where the programme was

rolled out �is to get agriculture as a way of life�. �The plan is still being developed and it

is still part of the process to get the thought embedded for the people to put the money they make from the programme back Into

it.�

As far as this year�s spending goes, Nyondo said their core business was in building

infrastructure, like fencing and dipping tanks

for rural farmers.

Apartheid-era irrigation schemes at Neora and Shio are being revitalised, as well as a

pomegranate processing facility. A grant worth 117 million was spent on

countering soil erosion in Transkei. �While we don�t have mines in the Eastern

Cape, our only mine is the soil and if that is

eroded we lose our wealth,� Nyondo said. He said the department was working closely with Asgisa Eastern Cape � tasked with

accelerating commercially viable agricultural development in Transkei � to speed up the

agrarian development of the province.

UP TO THE CHALLENGE: These women in the rural area near Qumbu have initiated their own wheat growing initiative. They were singing while harvesting the golden wheat which they sell to small bakeries and also use in their own homes to sustain their families.

Picture: ROUX VAN ZYL

DAILY DISPATCH, BusinessWednesday, 10 December 2008, p. 9