Food Summit speech, Gallagher Estates, MEC Agriculture Conservation and Environment Mr. Khabisi Mosunkutu
Midrand 10-11 July 2008
Programme Director, Comrade Memezi,
The Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs,
Ms Lulu Xingwana.
Ms Angie Motshekga MEC Education in Gauteng
Chairpersons of the various portfolio committees and members in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature
The MMCs from various municipalities,
Councilors,
Leaders of Political Parties present,
Delegates from Cosatu,
Delegates from SACP,
Delegates from NACTU,
Delegates from business,
Delegates from SANGOCO, and other ngos'
Delegates from SANCO
Delegates from farmer unions,
Farmers,
Officials from various government departments
Ladies and gentlemen
Ntjapedi hae hlolwe ke Sebata
Mme Jane Mabilu, spoke from the heart, she did not learn that from any university, but the university of life. She is experiencing these problems and that make her an expert on poverty issues and the impact of high food prices. Thank you Mme Jane for your expert advice.
This summit happens one day after the march organized by COSATU regarding the food price hikes amongst others. This summit also happens one day after a three-day Group of Eight (G8) Summit in Japan where G8 country leaders have shelved other burning global issues which were part of the agenda to focus their attention and discussion on the soaring food and fuel prices. These recent actions, friends, including our two day summit, demonstrate our need and commitment to ensure that this issue is addressed as speedily as possible.
Around the world, everyone is affected by this unprecedented increase in the price of food. The world over, governments and non governmental organizations, are asking themselves what has suddenly changed that the prices for basic and staple food has doubled and in some cases tripled. We are faced with many questions as countries of the south, therefore this meeting is about giving a voice to those that have not been the space to debate these issues, it is about the very people who are affected by the rapid and very destructive price increases that we are facing.
This meeting is about joining hands with all social movements including Cosatu, the SA Communist Party, NAFU, and many other international NGOs including business to find solutions and develop strategies to fight this scourge. This summit is about building a partnership between government and other social partners to finding solutions. We can only find solutions and develop proper strategies if we work together.
As government we need to continue to challenge both the local and international business to see reason and to convince them that super profits at the expense of the poor are not sustainable and will only lead to depression and further suffering in the world and as a result they will not benefit in the long term. But we know there are those companies who want to make quick profits and do not care about the effects on the poor and society in general. These companies need to be tackled without mercy. We have institutions such as the competition commission and many other bodies to assist but we need to strengthen them so that they do not only name these mercenaries but prosecute and make them feel where it hurts most, their profits.
This summit is about dialogue, the majority of people in this summit are women, youth and the poor for a purpose. We have heard what experts have to say, in the newspapers, we read about the experts explaining to us how high food prices affect the poor but we never get to hear what the poor say about it. We have organized this summit to afford you an opportunity and platform to make your voices heard.
We know that world trade is still skewed towards benefiting the west and mostly the rich countries. When we met in Polokwane in December 2007, we took resolutions, one of those was on economic transformation of the country and agreed that we need to build an economy that is connected to the world and which benefits from and balanced trade with the rest of the world in particular an economy that is increasingly integrated into the Southern African region and our continent as a whole to further the goals of development and regeneration of Africa. Therefore, this is not a battle only for Gauteng or South Africa only, but a battle for the rest of the continent.
The resolution further states that the changes we seek will not emerge spontaneously from an "invisible hand of the market", but from the people collectively in the spirit of human solidarity and the state must play a central role. The South African state is a developmental state located within a mixed economy, meaning a government which leads and guides the economy and which intervenes in the interest of the poor. This government, whilst is engaging private capital strategically, it is government that is rooted amongst the people and buttressed by a mass based democratic liberation movement.
Part of the problem is created by anti-competitive and monopolistic tendencies by some of the big companies in the country and the world over. The Polokwane conference agreed on creating strong anti-monopoly and anti-concentration policies and broadening ownership and participation by our people and by addressing monopoly pricing and collusion by companies.
As government, we are committed to expanding and ensuring the universal and subsidized access to basic services and maintaining and where appropriate, expanding the provision of social grants and finding ways and means of alleviating the burden of the poor and low income earners.
The developed countries of the north continue to provide huge subsidies to and other forms of support to their farmers with the aim of sustaining their agricultural sectors and ensuring national food security and this has greatly distorted agricultural trade and undermined rural livelihoods whilst at the same time worsening the poverty in the developing and poor countries especially Africa.
The other big question we are facing is the productivity of the national agricultural sector, how then do we have higher productivity when there is no equitable distribution of land. This is the core reason why we are regarded food secure country (net exporter) with a considerable amount of pockets of food insecure communities. As a result, we resolved at the Land Summit to make fundamental changes to the patterns of land ownership through redistribution of 30% of agricultural land by 2014, of course, there is resistance. Our approach is very simple and it includes planned market related offers, acquisitions and distribution and surely expropriations.
Let me remind you that the reason we are gathered here today is to address the issues around the escalating food prices which have now reached crisis proportions. The current crisis is different from others in that unlike in the past where only one economic variable was affected, this time around multiple factors are affected. In 1998 interest rates in South Africa reached an all time high hitting the 25% mark, the highest they had ever reached in the history of this country, at that time fuel prices was not a factor, biofuels and the use of grains in their development was only in its conception phase, the energy crises were not an issue. Since then we have experienced some of the lowest interest rates in the country until the current surges that have now seen increases over the past two years. Simultaneously, oil prices have also reached their highest price yet reaching an all time high, whilst electricity, rates and taxes have also enjoyed a huge portion of our disposable income.
The province has proper strategies in place to address food security issues. They include Growth and Development Strategy (GDS) and Gauteng Agricultural Development Strategy (GADS).
Comprehensive Agric ultural Support Programme (CASP), Land Redistribution for Agric ultural Development Programme (LRAD) and Household Food Security are examples of the food security related programmes which GDACE uses to advance the effectiveness of these strategies.
A discussion paper which will direct deliberations of the summit and sets out priority areas for discussions and achievements of the department in relation to food security has been compiled. I hope the discussion paper will steer the intensity of discussions in the commissions to strengthen these strategies and enable us to deal with rocketing food prices. The six commissions, each focusing on a particular theme, will form the basis for our declaration and resolutions which are implementable and achievable. We propose that a task team made up of representatives from all sectors be appointed immediately after the summit to monitor the implementation of the resolutions taken.
For the effective implementation of resolutions taken at this summit, the provincial government needs the support of communities, NGOs, CBOs, private sector and farmer unions. Each stakeholder here has an important role to play.
- Financial institutions should provide better access to funding for the farming sector as well as food security projects.
- Whilst we recognize the important role played by business, some businesses should bring to end the practice of colluding and inflating prices, for the sake of the poor of the poorest.
- Commercial agriculture should share their skills with the developing farmers especially through mentoring programmes amongst others
- Civil society should adopt the concept of homestead food gardens to ensure that we use every little space available for food production
- NGOs and CBOs should intensify food security training and capacity building and work closely with the department in achieving food security within the province.
- Farmer unions should support the emerging farmers and their members and building the capacity of their members to grow from being emerging farmers to being truly developed farmers, contributing to food production of the country. You can't be emerging forever.
- Trade unions should continue in their efforts and campaigns to finding a solution to the crises
Friends, let us use these two days to send a clear message to everyone that we are ready to battle this problem and find a lasting solution.
Just like I said when I started that, "Ntjapedi hae hlolwe ke Sebata"
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