POSITIONING AGRICULTURAL FET COLLEGES AT THE CENTRE AND FOREFRONT OF SKILLS DELIVERY AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Contribution by Prof. Sipho R Shabalala
Paper presented at the Agri-Seta’s Seminar held on 19 September in Johannesburg.
POSITIONING AGRICULTURAL FET COLLEGES AT THE CENTRE AND FOREFRONT OF SKILLS DELIVERY AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
By Professor Sipho R Shabalala, September 19, 2013.
INTRODUCTION
Within the South African development discourse the country must come out with polices and programmes that address the trinity problems of poverty, inequality and unemployment. The identification of the causal factors to these problems and their solutions has followed discursive processes and actors are influenced by their differentiated ideologies and self-interest. Indeed development polices and developments by itself are mediated by social, political, economic, cultural and institutional factors.Under such circumstances public policy as implemented is a compromise arising out the interplay of various actors influenced and powered or disempowered by the prevailing social order or social structure.
Accordingly the politics of power is central to negotiated policy outcomes. The distribution of this power is usually buttressed by resource endowment, knowledge and skills possessed, control over critical institutions, and proximity to state power.
Poverty and the underdevelopment including de-development of rural areas in South Africa are functions of the prevailing social order (structure, system) in South Africa which reproduces these outcomes. As a general rule a social order that is responsible for the production and reproduction of inequalities, social injustice, underdevelopment and poverty cannot be expected unrestructured or unchanged to produce prosperity, social justice, equality and employment.
The challenges facing agricultural and rural development in South Africa can be handled through micro-sectoral or structural solutions. One thing certain is that structural problems cannot be solved by tinkering with micro-projects but by macro- restructuring interventions. Micro projects are tempting because they do not invoke serious contestation among relevant actors.
So in the interest of harmony and stability, even with glaring structural problematiques, micro projects, like sector policies and programmes are chosen. Even the micro-projects themselves are perceived and designed within particular dominant or hegemonic paradigms of the time.
The conceptualisation of the role of Agri SETA and Agricultural FET Colleges with respect to Agricultural and rural development is governed by operating paradigms and our understanding of the politics and economics of agricultural management and the nature of rural development and the requisite measures for the rural development problematique. Agriculturalpollices are now designed within the prevailing market orthodoxy (setting prices right and retrenchment of the state) and economic growth is the dominant paradigm. The multi-sectionalism and human (capability) development perspectives of rural development always pose challenges to any sector-based measures of intervention. In turn skills development crafted around sectoral perspectives would equally face a credibility challenge in capacitating actors to deal with multi-sectoral challenges. It is, however, not impossible to craft a sectoral measure that has optimum impact on the multi-sectoral problem and challenge.
What is needed is first to recognise this reality and then, for instance, to capacitate agriculture to contribute optimally and partially to the overall challenges of rural development. This is going to be the approach of this paper.
In dealing with the agricultural sector growth imperative the inescapable challenge is the pinpointing of the drivers of such growth from a point of view of expanding the operation of the existing farming units or in promoting, new entrants that are initially resource – deficient (land, finance, knowledge/skills and technology, access to inputs and outputs markets, etc). Issues of agrarian reforms, ownership of farms, farm sizes, racial composition of the farming community, tenure systems, state support system, etc are critical in addressing agricultural development dispensation in South Africa.
I am going to first look at the urbanisation and rural dynamics and this is followed by the following areas: agricultural structure and performance, the context for the application of agricultural skills and knowledge, rural under-development and development, some provisions of the National Development Plan and lastly knowledge, skills and technical information production and delivery by the Agricultural FET Colleges.
URBANISATION AND RURALISATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa has been experiencing, for the last twenty years high rates of urbanisation. The country reached the world urbanisation level of 50, 6% as far back as 1980. The urban rural divide is both ethnically uneven and spatially unbalanced [Institute of Futures Research, BusinessFutures, 2009]. By 2001 the rate of urbanisation of Asians/Indians, Whites and Coloured was reaching its saturation – level with that of Africans remaining buoyant. According to the estimates by UN report [2008] the rural areas have been experiencing depopulation growth rate between 2005 – 2010 declining by 0, 67%. The accompanying Tables 1 and 2 demonstrate urbanisation (de-ruralisation) by provinces as well as the urban and rural growth rates in South Africa. About five provinces in 2007 had their urbanisation rate below 50%.
TABLE 1
Ranking of Provinces by Urbanisation Level, 2007 [source IFR Business Futures, 2009, Sourcing: from SAIRR, 2008:25]
PROVINCE / URBANISATION LEVEL (%)Limpopo / 10
Mpumalanga / 38
Eastern Cape / 39
North West / 45
KwaZulu Natal / 47
Northern Cape / 72
Free State / 79
Western Cape / 89
Gauteng / 92
TABLE 2
Urban and Rural Growth rates in South Africa
PERIOD / ANNUAL URBAN GROWTH (%) / ANNUAL RURAL GROWTH (%)1950- 1955 / 3.36 / 1.57
1975 – 1980 / 2,60 / 2,35
2005- 2010 / 1,35 / -0,67
2025 – 2030 / 1,02 / -1,22
Source: IFR Business Futures 2009, sourcing from UN 2008: 74 -75.
In the provinces like Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga the concept of rural development as opposed to just provincial development should be a matter of critical consideration. The opposite applies with respect to the Free State, Western Cape and Gauteng. Table 2 shows Annual urban and rural growth rates for selected years. From 2005 to 2030 estimates are given. According to Stats SA internal migration affects mainly Gauteng and Western Cape as receiving provinces. Between 2001 – 2006 it is reported that about 12% (5, 5 million people) in South Africa migrated within the country, and 3, 75 million of them were Africans.
The migration figures in South Africa should, however, be handled with care because permanence and temporarity are not revealed by published statistics.
The migration levels, trends and spatial differences are pointers to the existing distribution of livelihood resources and opportunities within the country. The most affected segments of our society vote with their feet, moving from resource-opportunity – depressed areas to the well - off areas.
This is an indicator of areas deserving focused development attention. Depopulated areas usually experience the out-migration of younger and more educated members of their communities. The consequences of economic development or agricultural development may be increasingly becoming negative. If the composition of the out-migrating group is mostly that of the landless, under-employed workers and surplus labour the consequences would be increment in productivity and standard of living of the remaining population. But there is no evidence to the effect. The pointers to the desirability of robust agricultural and rural development are partially portrayed by the migration patterns and the age educated – skills group composition of the migrating individuals has policy implication with respect to agricultural and rural development. The role of agriculture to provide food for the growing cities and supporting agro-processing industry in urban and rural areas cannot be over-emphasised.
THE CONTEXT FOR THE APPLICATION OF AGRICULTURAL AND SKILLS KNOWLEDGE
The agrarian and rural structures of the South African state provide fundament bases for the development and application of skills, knowledge and methodologies that would enhance the impact of agricultural performance on rural development. Human capital development must be informed by the context within which resultant knowledge, skills, perspectives, attitudes and behaviours are to be applied in effective manners (positive impact effects, relevance effects, transformational effects on prevail social structure/order]. The sector based human capital development to be applied at a multi-sectoral composite and within people –place (spatial) dynamics is expected to have optimum impact on the composite and should facilitate reciprocal relationships between the composite multi-sectoral and heterogenous place context and the offered sector based capabilities. These capabilities are to be imparted to various actors: farm workers, owners of farm and social enterprises (small, medium and large), the rural landless the rural landless community members, local government staff, various institutions.
The foundations of the agricultural sector and typologies for rural areas in South Africa have received various critical comments. According to Stephen Greenberg: “It is well known that South Africa has a dualistic agrarian structure, sharply divided along lines of race. This dualism is most apparent in the legal-administrative and social division of the rural areas owned and controlled by whites and communal areas owned by the State and historically administered by “tribal authorities”. [S Greenberg, 2003 “Power and Politics in the shaping of rural development in post apartheid South Africa”, in Development Update Vol. 4. No.1].
The South African state has been described to be a ”bifurcated” state wherein urban people occupy socio-political economic positions of being citizens while those in rural areas remain being subjects. This is viewed as a carry over of the colonial social order. Transformation and development measures have been principally expected to bring about a social order of common citizenship and its attendant social order [Mamdani, M, 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Cape Town: David Phillip; Ntshebexa, L 2003. “Democracy in South Africa’s countryside: Is there a role for traditional authorities”” in Development Update, Rural Development in South Africa, Vol. 4 No.1].
The agricultural system and sector in South Africa is characterised by the societal divide reflecting the prevailing social order in the country. Large high earning commercial farms have their origin in the Platteland and are owned and controlled by whites. Subsistence farming and smallholder farming is associated with “native reserves”, or “homelands” or communal areas and they are associated with indigenous African farmers and communities. Poverty, food insecurity and degraded human environment is the order of the day here.
South Africa is a country of large –scaled and globally integrated agricultural sector that is predominately white owned and controlled. The contribution of agriculture to the country’s GDP, jobs and exports is provided by Table 3. Table 4 demonstrates that products from the agricultural sector was 46,5 billion rands in the years 1999/2000 and 128,2 billion rands in the years 2009/2010 representing a growth of 17,5%.
Between 1999/2000 and 2009/2010 the contribution of field crops declined from 31,0% to 23,8%. There was much growth with respect to animals and animal products from 42, 3% to 50,6 % during the respective years [Table 5]. Within the primary sector at least in 2011 agriculture had higher contribution to job creation than the mining sector. Similarly it imported less than the mining sector than the mining sector.
TABLE 3
2011 Sectoral Contributions to GDP, Jobs & Exports
Primary Sector / Share of GDP (%) / Share of Jobs (%) / Share of Exports (%) / Share of ImportsAgriculture / 2,2 / 4,7 / 3,8 / 1,7
Mining / 5,2 / 2,4 / 39,6 / 15,8
TABLE 4
Agricultural Production by Sector and Product 1999/2000 and 2009/10 (Field Crops) (RM)
1999/20002009/10
Field Crops / 14, 429 / 30 480 / Change 11.1%Horticulture / 12, 465 / 32 815 / Change 16,3%
Animal Product / 19, 690 / 64 920 / Change 2, 30%
Total Agri Production / 46 585 / 128 215 / Change 17,5%
TABLE 5
Proportions by Agricultural Sector (%)
1999/2000 / 2009/2010Field crops / 31,0 / 23,8
Horticulture / 26,8 / 25,6
Animals and Animal products / 42,3 / 50,6
Source: Tables 3 – 5. 2012 South African Survey, South African Institute of Race Relations
TABLE 6
Characteristics of Unemployed people 2012Proportions (%)
Job Losers / 32,6Job Leavers / 5,2
New Entrants / 43,0
Re-Entrants / 15.5
Source: 2012 South African Survey, South African Institute of Race Relations
TABLE 7
Employment in agriculture by Sector 2001 – 12
Year / Formal / Informal2001 / 753,000 / 215,000
2005 / 543,000 / 276,000
2010 / 568,000 / 90,000
2011 / 512,000 / 85,000
2012 / 554,000 / 84,000
2001-2012 / -26,4 / -40,9%
Source: tables 5, 6 and 7: 2012 South African Survey, South African Institute of Race Relations
It is always important to recognise that the agricultural sector contributes significantly to the activities of the manufacturing sector. About 22% of the manufacturing sales in 2011 were composed of processed agricultural products. The contribution of the agricultural sector to employment is demonstrated Table 7 and Table 6 shows the characteristic for unemployed people in 2010. Between 2001 and 2012 the agricultural sector had shed 26, 4% jobs in the country.
South Africa, is a net exporter of agricultural commodities and is taken to be largely self-sufficient in food production. But, according to the Institute of Futures Research in 2009, there were approximately 14 million South Africans primarily in rural areas who were vulnerable to food shortages. But in 2002 the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme had as it aims the achievement of physical, social and economic access to safe and nutritious food for all South Africans. (Institute of Futures Research Business Nurtures, 2009].
In its document “Prospects for South Africa’s Future Development Report” the Development Bank of South Africa noticed that the contribution of the primary sector agriculture and mining in the economy and livelihoods of South Africans, especially the poor, had been declining. Quoting from a United Nations report it reported it stated that the between 50% - 80%. South African household were food insecure. The drivers to this situation were identified as being: food prices, inadequate access to land, poor soil quality in rural areas and lack of access to credit and markets by the African majority. The smallholder agriculture had also declined within about 1,4 million households having no access to land. The agrarian reform had, therefore, failed or was failing.
Food security is described a state where:
-There is enough food for all people (individuals, families, households, communities)
-With adequate nutritive value,
-That is culturally and socially acceptable,
-Where people have social and physical access to food and portable water, at all times, for a healthy life.
The critical elements for food security are therefore: availability, nutrition, economic access, social access, physical access, cultural access, water access and legal sanctions [Amitava Mukerjae, Food Security: Concept, Framework and Interdependencies Undated]. Food can be made available through own production inheritance or exchange (purchasing which requires income). At a community level “……community food security concerns the underlying social, economic, and institutional factors within a community that affect the quantity and quality of available food and its affordability or price relative to the sufficiency of financial resources available to acquire it” [USDA Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit, 20002].
The agricultural sector has been subjected to macro-economic reforms dictates which include the worshiping of the Market orthodox, Janry, Key and Sadoulet have reviewed the impact of the neo –liberal macro economic policies in the Latin American countries and have identified the following results: liberalisation and deregulations, withdrawal of state from ownership and direct involvement, integration to global markets, using of market transfers of productive assets, and the maximisation of private investment against those for the public sector. Government remains responsible for major infrastructural investment such as roads, transportation, environmental management, research and training, etc. [Janry, A, Key, and Sadoulet, E, 1997, Agricultural and Rural Development Policy in Latin America: New Development and New Challenges”, U.C. Berkley Working Paper No.815]. This indeed is the South African story since 1994. The marginalisation effect on poor subsistence and small holder farmers in rural areas has been epitomised.
ON RURAL UNDERVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
The typology of rural areas or rurality in South Africa has not been comprehensively and conclusively done or pronounced to facilitate effective public policy formulation and implementation.
The National Treasury describes rural areas as areas having sparse population.Families/households dependant on farming or natural resources, dispersed villages and small towns and large, settlements in the former homelands with traditional land tenure and also dependent on migratory labour, remittances and social grants from government [Business Future, IFR, 2009]. Rural areas are places for the poor (economically, socially, politically, institutionally, whole livelihood assets); vulnerable and marginalised households and communities with limited geographic capital; communities limited political voice; precariously serving subsistence and smallholder, farms high levels of unemployment; low human capital endowment; little or non-existent viable business enterprises; limited or no critical social, economic and physical infrastructure and services; inadequate or ineffective institutions; relatively low incomes, etc.. Poverty, inequalities, unemployment and overall economic doldrums are quintessentially descriptive of rural areas.
For public policy for transformation and development purposes the following perspectives or issues are important:
- Rural development policies should be people-place based and not sector based;
- Rural areas are not homogenous in terms of geographic capital (assets), levels of development needs and priorities of local people, etc.;
- Positive externalities generated by sectoral programmes and projects should be identified and exploited;
- Rural development is not equivalent to Agricultural Development or Green Revolution;
- Rural Development should be pursued in a balanced manner with urban development efforts that are mutually beneficial.
- The urban –rural dichotomy should be replaced with a rural – urban continuum and with an emphasis on functional relationships between the two human settlements systems.
BRIEFLY WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
The heterogeneity of the rural areas in terms of land quality, climate, biodiversity circumstances of living and quality of life, economic structures and performance, human, physical and social capital, employment opportunities, etc, indicate than pan-territorial policies and programmes cannot be efficacious.