06 Aug 2013

The Vice President, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe has underscored the relevance of agricultural value chains as mechanisms to introduce new forms of production.

Speaking at the official opening of the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) symposium on Monday, Dr Kedikilwe said value chains facilitated the establishment of social and economic networks among organisations, institutions and other relevant stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

The symposium was held under the theme: Agricultural Value Chain Approach in Agricultural Development: Coping with New Demands for Advisory Services. Dr Kedikilwe noted however that there were major constraints in the value chain, which included the challenge that African agriculture was characterised by a large number of small scale producers.

He said the majority of these used indegenous technologies for production with inadequate capital to invest and inability to penetrate the market. “These are some of the major challenges that the agricultural advisory services and other stakeholders should jointly address at each stage of the value chain,” he stressed.  

The Vice President said the sub-themes of the symposium were crucial to the success of the value chain approach as they could assist the agricultural advisory service if adequately addressed at this forum.  He said the advisory services should develop ways of involving small scale producers by not only providing farm inputs, “but more on providing advice along the value chain to farmers.”

Dr Kedikilwe highlighted that the advisory service should be able to teach farmers about improved farming technologies in a manner they could understand and appreciate. He said the advent of information technology had provided an opportunity for advisory services to devise and find ways of improving communication with farmers and different stakeholders so that timely advice was provided at each stage of the value chain.

Participants were encouraged to deliberate on issues that affected all stakeholders in the value chain, identify challenges that affected agricultural productivity, including public education and extension services, leveraging of appropriate technology, thorough and technically sound and professional research.

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Christiaan De Graaff said his ministry was in the process of transforming the agricultural sector to commercialisation to promote production of agricultural commodities in areas that were suitable.

Mr De Graaff  said commodity clusters were being created in different agro-ecological zones and that areas suitable for cereal production were identified, clustered and relevant extension support provided. He said for the value chain concept to succeed, it needed support of various stakeholders right from the point of production to final product to the consumer.

For his part, former president, Sir Ketumile Masire said in the context of agricultural extension communication tools, the AFAAS body was alive to the demands and new challenges facing the continent.

He said a strategy was being developed to capture the roles, ambitions and future mandates of agricultural extension work continentally. ENDS