8 July 2025

Honorable House Chairperson, Honorable Minister, distinguished Members of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, and fellow Members of Parliament, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this vital debate. As we consider the 2025/26 Budget Vote for Agriculture, I rise on behalf of the African National Congress to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to food security, robust support for smallholder and subsistence farmers, and the equitable allocation of resources across our agricultural sector.

Indeed, our Constitution enshrines the right to sufficient food and calls on government to achieve it. In that spirit, the Department of Agriculture’s core purpose is precisely to lead and support sustainable farming to achieve economic growth, job creation, and, above all, food security, rural development and transformation in our countryside. This is the framework guiding all our rural development efforts. The ANC has long recognized that food security is fundamental to the well-being of our people and the stability of our nation. One of the three critical focus areas in our current term is ensuring food security by strengthening agriculture in rural areas, boosting production and creating jobs. We are turning these words into action.

This Budget continues to prioritize food security initiatives, from community and school nutrition gardens to commercial food production schemes – while also easing the cost of living by expanding the VAT-free food basket, so that rising prices do not deny our people nourishment. In line with the Freedom Charter’s enduring call that food be plentiful, and no one shall go hungry, our aim is to achieve zero hunger through both increased food availability and affordability.

Madam Chairperson, food security is not achievable without the active inclusion of our thousands of small-scale and subsistence farmers across the country. The ANC has championed these farmers as the key to transforming our agricultural landscape and bringing previously excluded communities into the economy. We back this commitment with tangible resources. Over the past five years, through flagship support programmes such as the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) and Ilima/Letsema, government has invested billions to uplift smallholders. For example, between 2019/20 and 2023/24, CASP alone spent R6.66 billion on over 2,100 projects, benefiting nearly 60,000 smallholder producers and creating over 21,700 jobs, while the Ilima/Letsema programme invested R2.61 billion to support roughly 297,000 subsistence and smallholder farmers, creating over 81,000 jobs in the process. These are not abstract numbers, they represent emerging farmers empowered with irrigation systems, tractors, seeds, training and mentorship. They represent families now able to produce food for both their tables and their local markets. In the current financial year, the Department has allocated an additional R1.74 billion specifically to support over 6,000 smallholder producers across all nine provinces, and R448 million to assist nearly 67,500 vulnerable households to boost food production and create almost 9,500 farming jobs at the household level.

This massive investment underscores the ANC’s belief that smallholder farmers are the backbone of local food security. Let me illustrate what these support programmes mean on the ground. They mean fencing a community vegetable plot in Limpopo so that crops aren’t lost to roaming livestock. They mean building a packhouse and cold-storage facility for a cooperative of apple farmers in the Western Cape, enabling them to meet market standards. They mean giving women in rural KwaZulu-Natal access to quality poultry feed and vaccinations so they can raise chickens for sale and nutrition. Concretely, our farmer support packages include on-farm and off-farm infrastructure (like boreholes, irrigation and storage facilities), provision of inputs (seeds, fertilizers and mechanization support in the form of tractors and equipment), as well as training, extension services and mentorship. We are also helping small producers meet market standards, for example, through the SA-GAP certification programme in partnership with the Perishable Products Export Control Board, which certifies smallholders to supply safe, high-quality food to retailers and the public. These efforts enable emerging farmers to break into value chains from which they were previously excluded, broadening market access even at the grassroots. The ANC remains resolute that the historical injustices in agriculture must continue to be addressed. Equitable access to resources – land, water, finance and technology – is fundamental to true freedom for our people.

This Budget Vote and the Department’s plans over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework reflect a clear drive towards transformation and inclusion in agriculture. Since the dawn of democracy, our government has redistributed about 5.3 million hectares of land to over 315,000 beneficiaries, including farm dwellers and labor tenants, through land reform programmes. This land redistribution, alongside affirmative procurement and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment measures is transforming the face of farming by bringing thousands of Black farmers, many of them women and youth – into the sector. We know that providing land is only the first step; supporting beneficiaries to use that land productively is key, and that is why post-settlement support is tightly integrated with our agricultural budget. Our Department’s Strategic Plan and the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan both highlight comprehensive post-settlement support, extension services and farmer training as priorities over the medium term; indeed, R923 million is allocated over the MTEF specifically to fund CASP grants for developing these farmers.

We are also overhauling and expanding our agricultural extension services. We plan to recruit 10,000 new extension officers over the next few years, reducing the farmer-to-extension officer ratio from about 1:850 to roughly 1:250. This bold initiative will ensure that every emerging farmer, however remote, has access to the expertise and advice needed to improve yields sustainably. Crucially, equitable resource allocation also means targeting our public investments where they yield the greatest socio-economic impact – namely to small-scale farmers, rural women and youth – and ensuring transparency and accountability in how funds are used.

We as the Portfolio Committee concerned about instances where funds meant for farmer support did not reach the intended beneficiaries. We will tightened oversight so that grant funding flows only to provinces with proper plans and robust reporting, and payments are now made quarterly against verified targets. We will not tolerate any misappropriation that robs our farmers of the support they are due. The ANC-led government is backing up our commitments with good governance, because every rand in this Budget must translate into ploughs in the field and food on the table.

As I conclude, Honorable Members, we confront the reality that South Africa – like many countries – has been buffeted by global crises, from pandemics to conflicts, which have driven up food prices and tested our food system. Yet thanks to the resilience of our farmers and the support of proactive government measures, we have remained food secure as a nation. We are a net exporter of many agricultural products, and even in difficult times agriculture has continued to create jobs and opportunity. The ANC is determined to deepen these gains, because agrarian transformation is integral to social justice. We do so inspired by the ordinary Eastern Cape farmer who, with a small grant and training, turned her homestead plot into a thriving vegetable farm feeding her village – an example of empowerment multiplied thousands of times by our policies. Let us all support this Budget, which is truly a budget for food security and inclusion. In doing so, we uphold the call of the Freedom Charter and our Constitution to fulfil our people’s right to food. The ANC-led government will continue to ensure that the fruits of our land are shared by all, not just a few. Working together – government, farmers big and small, and communities – we will ensure South Africa’s food sovereignty and eradicate hunger once and for all.

I thank you.