There’s no need to reinvent the wheel to boost growth in agriculture

The South African government should rather recast its vision of agricultural development using chapter six of the National Development Plan as a point of departure.

The NDP proposed a three-tier approach for agriculture and agro-processing to reach its fullest potential of creating one million jobs by 2030, namely the development of underutilised land especially in former homeland areas and failed land reform farms (approximately 400,000 jobs), the expansion of export-led high growth areas (approx. 250,000 jobs) and the investment on agro-processing with integrated up-and downstream linkages (approximately 350,000 jobs).

But what will need to be done differently post the pandemic is the realisation that the broad vision should be followed up with detailed operational plans to guide the officials and various stakeholders at the local level.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development is currently drafting the sector Master Plan, along with private sector players. Such a plan should prioritise high-value job-creating sub-sectors, and not only focus on areas where agriculture sector is established at the commercial level, rather in new areas that still have untapped potential. Such areas involve the former homeland regions of South Africa, government land and also underperforming land reform farms.

The Master Plan should map these areas, along with potential agricultural activities which could be promoted. Another crucial step will be to understand why agricultural development has lagged over the past two decades in such regions while in the commercial agriculture areas the output has more than doubled since 1994.

There are several reasons which explain this disparity in fortunes, the major ones being lower levels of investment in agriculture and lack of infrastructure. With respect to investment, poor land governance, both in the former homelands and some underutilised land reform farms, have been the key impediments. With regard to the lack of infrastructure, the problem has been compounded by poor service delivery in various local municipalities, especially those in former homelands towns of South Africa.

Given these structural challenges, the Master Plan will have to lucidly articulate ways and means to increase investment, as well as the improvement or capacitation of local governance. In the case of investment, agriculture is a long-term economic activity with relatively modest returns. Given this reality, the South African government will have to clarify its long-term view on land reform policy, not only for areas that are already farming commercially but also for the former homelands, where investment and commercial agriculture is set to make the most impact.

A renewed drive on the prioritisation of joint venture models between the private sector and the government is now critical in bringing about development. The private sector will not only bring a “know-how” to the state but also a capital investment. South Africa already has examples of such development programme from which to build on.

These include, but not limited to, Sernick Group in the beef sector in the Free State and the Humansdorp Co-op in the Eastern Cape, which focuses on field crops and horticulture. Both companies have partnered with government and communities to develop for the developed of black farming businesses.

The Master Plans should reflect on such examples of successful programmes and further innovate and develop institutions which effectively drive and sustain development. Moreover, this post-Covid-19 agriculture development plan should also encompass the agro-processing side as that will add to job creation and development in various rural towns. On this particular point, private sector investment should also be encouraged.

Therefore, the agriculture and agro-processing Master Plan should also reflect on strategic incentives for firms to expand agro-processing in various towns which were not predominantly agricultural.

This might be in the form of tax incentives for various agricultural hubs which will be determined by the type of agricultural activity. In areas where weather conditions permit, the government should encourage the expansion of horticulture production as this subsector has higher labour absorption multipliers than other subsectors of agriculture, in addition to also having higher value.

All these ideas aren’t new. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Rather, the focus should be on understanding why there has been low levels of policy implementation over the past two decades. Addressing the stumbling blocks to development (i.e. investment and infrastructure) and focusing on effective implementation are the key ingredients of a successful post-Covid-19 agricultural sector.

Given that the private sector’s role might have been less pronounced in the past, the tight fiscal position that the South African government is currently in demands a need for external funding to drive development and agriculture. This means for the better part, agricultural development in a post-Covid-19 will require deeper and greater participation of private sector.

However, effective private sector participation demands that government provides greater levels of policy certainty, especially land reform. The government will have to take an investment friendlier approach, which is still anchored in development. The private-public-partnership approach is one such model, and there are a number of case studies that can be used to draw lessons.