The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube
GOING through the names of board members of one parastatal announced recently, I found myself subconsciously asking the same questions that always come into my mind when such announcements are made.
Is the list balanced enough to represent the interests of all citizens? In simple terms are my interests going to be properly represented? This got me asking questions about boards in the ministry of my interest, the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development.
Specifically how many farmers are represented in the boards that fall under this ministry? This forms the axis of this week’s instalment. It is my submission that farmers should begin to demand to have a stake in agriculture boards. It is no rocket science that these boards deliberate on and inform policy direction in matters of agriculture. It is imperative therefore that farmers should be able to participate in decision making especially for decisions which have a direct bearing on their source of livelihood.
A quick scan in these boards will probably reveal that they are mostly occupied by professionals from various sectors some of them with no relationship with agriculture. It is about time farmers through their unions demanded at least a quota for boards which are agriculture-related. The CSC board for example should have notable livestock farmers sitting on the board.
There is a tendency of relying too much on academics to represent interests of farmers yet most of these academics are not farmers at all but merely teaching agriculture courses. A quick example is that there are a number of stakeholder meetings being held to discuss the Foot and Mouth Disease effect on livestock farmers and how it can be controlled but you hardly get anyone from our local universities attending but they are teaching animal science courses. Then you take that guy and make him a board member of CSC!
However, for farmers to be able to demand a stake in these boards they need to be organised. The beef sector is disorganised in terms of representation. Dairy farmers have an association that drives their interests, so does the pig and poultry producers.
Livestock farmers simply have to unionise properly and have a leadership that will champion their cause.
This is not to suggest that the current leadership in the available unions is inept but that livestock matters especially beef production urgently need to be treated as a specific subject not to be tucked under the general banner of agriculture. Beef production farmers need to stop shouting from the alleys and get inside. The Government is a body corporate which cannot go around consulting unstructured and unorganised groups but it will certainly listen to inputs from structured institutions. I said it in my other instalment that farmers who are not in unions have no business complaining about the performance or lack of it, of any association.
It is my call therefore that beef farmers should be organised and structured so that they can be able to engage the Government in such critical matters as demanding a stake in boards that pertain to our constituency. It is irresponsible for farmers to be bystanders on matters whose decisions affect them daily and directly. Why would you entrust a person who does not even know how much a litre of dipping chemical cost, to make policy decisions on matters in your domain? Right now FMD is the elephant in the room for most livestock farmers and decisions are being made daily in trying to contain the spread of the disease. The question is how much of the input is coming from real farmers. I am talking of farmers who are losing business because they cannot move animals, farmers who stand to lose even more business as the disease spreads? I am talking here of real farmers who walk the ranch every day not some boardroom farmer whose judgment is clouded by air conditioners and refreshments on the table! May real farmers stand up and be counted. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo!
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