The inaugural summit of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture highlighted rural security, food security and land reform. The summit was held in Rawsonville, Boland.
As the main driver of the economy, agriculture generates over 14% of all jobs in the Western Cape.
The department’s Gerry Eris says: “Farmers should take advantage of this grant opportunity in their business, but unfortunately grant funding can’t sustain that person forever, so they will have to find other sources of funding so we can help new people get in the funding queue and that we can also engage young people, women and people with disabilities to support them.
“I would like to ask people with disabilities, women and youth to apply for these grants and if they need support, they can contact us to help them,” Aries adds.
Meanwhile, Western Cape Agriculture Minister Ivan Meyer says the province has a number of rural security projects underway. He says that an attack on a farm is not only an attack on the individual farmer, but also on the economy.
Meyer spoke at the Department’s inaugural Municipal Agriculture Summit held in Rawsonville, Boland.
“We have created a rural security service, a digital rural security dashboard, and we have done extensive research on rural security in the Western Cape so that we can deploy the right resources in different places. I have also visited some police stations with supervision and I am very pleased that in some places the police are looking at certain rural areas and in some places there are simply not enough resources.’
The Western Cape hosts its inaugural Municipal Agriculture Summit
