The government is working with the agricultural sector to support and manage address challenges that women face in the industry, agriculture, land reform and rural development minister Thoko Didiza said.
Speaking at a webinar on the role of women in agriculture as part of women’s month celebrations, Didiza said the challenges included access to land, markets, and inputs and implements.
Agriculture is a mainstay of the SA economy, contributing about 3% to GDP, and accounts for about 900,000 jobs.
The government has developed and adopted the Beneficiary Selection and Land Allocation (BSLA) policy, which states that “50% of agricultural land that the state disposes must go to women”, 40% to youth and 10% to people living with disabilities, Didiza said.
Of the 700,000ha of land released by the government last year, 53,000ha — amounting to 78 farms — was allocated to 217 women, she said.
The 700,000ha was acquired by the apartheid government for consolidation of the so-called homelands which, after 1994, remained in the hands of the central government. The department has said about 220,000 applications have been approved for allocation under the 700,000ha programme.
“Are we happy about the numbers? Certainly not,” Didiza said on Thursday. “We want these numbers to grow [because] women remain the bedrock of strengthening our food systems at local level.”
Women possessed power to transform society and were at the forefront of the struggle against land dispossession after the promulgation of the Native Land Act in 1913, she said.
Land reform and women empowerment - South Africa
The commemoration of Aug. 9. 1956 “serves as an affirmation of the role that women continue to play in changing our socio-economic conditions today,” Didiza said, referring to the women’s march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the proposed amendments to the Urban Areas Act.
“The issue of land access and ownership remains an important productive asset that women need. We need to develop strategies on how we can ensure a better legal framework that will ensure access and equity,” Didiza said.
The agriculture department also wanted to expand women’s knowledge in agro-processing and agribusiness. “We are working on the agriculture and agribusiness master plan; we want gender parity to be ingrained in the master plan,” she said. “We need an agrarian society where men and women have access to equal opportunities that present themselves.”
The department is piloting a project with 100 women who have already involved in agro-processing space, Didiza said. “The intention is to incubate these women enterprises such that they can become sustainable and grow. This pilot will ensure that we learn from our interventions as well as from the women themselves, she said. “At the end of the pilot we can then roll out at scale.”
Empowering women in agriculture is “important to ensure economic inclusion in our society and at the same time strengthen women’s role in strengthening food security in our country”, Didiza added.
Rendani Sadiki, the department’s CFO, said contracts worth R1.4bn were issued in the 2020/2021 financial year, with much of that allocated to women-owned businesses.
Of the 111 bids the department issued, 83 contracts valued at R434.9m were awarded to male-owned businesses, with the remainder, valued at R632m, going to women-owned enterprises.
The contracts were for agricultural inputs and equipment, livestock, medication and animal feed; consultants, catering, cleaning, security, travel and events management, and building maintenance services.
