One of the commitments undertaken at the Provincial Growth and Development Summit, held on 14 November 2003, was that strategies should be developed for certain key sectors of the Western Cape economy. One of the key sectors thus identified was the agricultural sector, including its forward and backward linkages. Background work between the four social partners (Government, Business, Labour and Civil Society) for the process started soon after the elections of April 2004.

As part of the subsequent process the main issues were refined into the following eight themes:

a) Land reform and Agricultural Black Economic Empowerment.
b) Human Resource Development, Social and farm worker issues.
c) Competitiveness in agricultural marketing, market developmentand market access.
d) Infrastructure.
e) Research and Development (technical and economic).
f) Extension and farmer support.
g) The Natural environment, food safety and food security.
h) Institutional development.

Within each of these themes a number of specific concerns were identified and the context (in terms of threats, opportunities and desired outcome) of each concern was defined. Furthermore, for each of these concerns specific action plans, responsible parties and means of verification were developed. In total 90 different action plans were developed.

After the formal signing of the Agreement the next phase of the process will be implementation of the agreed upon action plans. As each of the partners has assumed responsibility for certain actions, the Steering Committee are being transformed into an interactive and monitoring mechanism. In this way the momentum of consensus building, created in this Sector with its own unique interactions, will not be lost.

The final Agreement will be released during a Business Breakfast on 12 May 2006.
Lord Charles Hotel, Somerset West.
Registration at 07:00 for 7:30.

RSVP:
Mishka Abrahams, Elsenburg, Agricultural Economics.
Tel: 021 808 5191
Email: MishkaA@elsenburg.com

Enquiries:
Dr Dirk Troskie
Cell: 082 658 6018

Alie van Jaarsveld
Spokesperson
Ministry of Agriculture: Western Cape
Tel: 021 483 4930
Fax: 021 483 3890
Email: avjaarsv@pgwc.gov.za