Cape Town - Agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer has said that the Western Cape is now responsible for 53% of South Africa’s agricultural exports.
He was briefing the legislature’s standing committee on agriculture on his department’s annual report for the 2020/2021 financial year.
Meyer said that since the 2019/2020 financial year, the province had seen a 24% increase in agricultural exports.
“During the year under review, Western Cape agricultural exports totalled R76 billion. This confirms the sector's resilience.
“This last financial year was one of the most challenging times in modern history and my department had a considerable responsibility to keep agriculture going after agriculture was declared an essential service,” said Meyer.
He said that during the year the department had also launched its rural safety desk, an email facility to report rural crime-related incidents, a dashboard, and a rural safety pocket guide.
The department also fully achieved its student equity target of 45%, and strove to ensure greater diversity in knowledge and skills development as well as transformation in the sector.
Committee chairperson Andricus van der Westhuizen (DA) said: “While these actions will certainly further the skills and know-how in the development of this sector, this needs to be balanced by ensuring that there are economic opportunities in agriculture.”
Van der Westhuizen said he was looking forward to observing how these successes would be used as a platform for the department to do more good and help facilitate further economic growth in agriculture.