MENTORSHIP
1. A brief background why the mentorship programme was established
Over the past nine years AgriSETA invested large amounts of money in the delivery of learnerships and skills programmes aimed at new farmers who now intend to farm commercially.
Agriculture is however very peculiar. It is exposed to climatic changes and other external factors over which the farmer has little or no control. It is not possible to transfer all the knowhow and skills during a learneship or skills programme to entitle a new farmer to farm effectively. If we realize that our commercial farmers have been involved for a numbers of generations and grew over time to become successful commercial farmers, it is easy to understand that by exposing new farmers to a one year (or less) training programme, will most certainly not prepare them sufficiently to become commercial farmers.
For this reason we established the mentorship programme. The programme aims at providing long term (three years or more) direct support to a new farmer via utilizing the expertise of a commercial, experienced farmer. In this manner it will be possible to guide and assist new farmers into becoming commercial farmers.
2. How will this initiative be funded?
The matter of more effective and sustainable support to new farmers were discussed at length by our Governing Board. We also discussed the matter with the Commissioner for the Restitution of Land Rights. It was unanimously agreed by all involved that training alone is not sufficient and based on the success actual projects where mentoring services are provided, it was decided to proceed with a mentoring initiative.
The AgriSETA Governing Board voted an amount of R20 million from our discretionary fund to be earmarked to “kick start” this initiative. Clearly, this is not sufficient. For this reason an application had been forwarded in April to the National Skills Fund to support the AgriSETA with a further R100 million, as a first phase. Should we be successful with this application it will be followed up in two years’ time with an additional application for a further R158 million. This will enable us to engage in not only a massive roll-out of learnerships and skills programmes but also an extensive mentorship programme.
3. What are the key contents of the programme?
As a first step we will want to understand clearly what are the specific development needs of selected new farmers or new farmer groups (such as a group of land reform beneficiaries). This needs analysis will be followed by specific interventions agreed to with the beneficiaries. These may include learnerships, skills programmes, ABET, bursaries and the like. However in all cases, with the involvement of the beneficiary or beneficiary group, a mentor(s) will be selected, trained and contracted to assist the beneficiaries in a planned and programmed manner.
You will note that I keep on emphasizing that initiatives will be proposed with maximum beneficiary involvement – we believe that it is paramount that beneficiaries should be directly and fully involved in matter that concern them directly – they will have to take the lead in deciding what development is required; we are there to support and where possible fund these processes. We will thus not do things for beneficiaries, they will do it themselves and we will support.
4. How is this initiative going to be rolled out in the various provinces and when is it going to be implemented?
Whilst this initiative is not solely initiated to the benefit of land reform beneficiaries, its main focus is on land reform beneficiaries. To this end we have entered into a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Commissioner for the Restitution of Land Rights. We will be partners in this project.
The Commissioner has strong provincial structures and these structures will be utilized extensively to identify the correct projects in a balanced manner across all provinces. It is foreseen that a panel consisting of staff from the office of the Commissioner, the AgriSETA as well as selected specialists will be formed to consider proposals of projects to be supported. From approval, a specific implementation plan will be developed and agreed with beneficiaries.
5. Who are the beneficiaries of this programme/are any projects identified for mentorship at this stage?
Whilst we have, in conjunction with the staff of the office of the Commissioner provisionally identified 50 initial projects, this has not been done formally yet. At this stage we await approval on our application from the NSF. However, since last year the AgriSETA has been involved with the support of mentors. A good example is where we have made available R500 000 to Magaliesburg Grain Cooperative (MGK) to support the salaries of mentors they employ to assit 127 new farmers in the North West Province. This initiative is hugely successful, but at this stage our isvolvement is of an ad-hoc nature and based on applications for support received by our office.
6. As AgriSETA, how are we going to monitor the progress of these initiatives?
Progress monitoring and evaluation is a priority. On approval from the NSF, we will appoint a full-time project manager and project administration staff. Selected provincially based officials of the Office of the Commissioner will be identified and taken up into the project. Each project will, prior to implementation have a fully designed monitoring and evaluation plan accompanying its overall roll-out plan.
7. What are the long term goals and future plans of this programme?
We have only one long term goal – to establish new farmers as successful and commercial enterprises which will contribute equally to food security in South Africa and Africa. We have no other motives. We need our new farmers to become successful.
In the short term we would obviously like to use the initial success of the first round of implementation to ensure that we attract long term sustainable funding from the NSF to the benefit of the agricultural sector at large. If we can achieve this we will be in a position to really roll the initiative out on a national scale benefitting all potential commercial new farmers and not only a few selected projects.
Yours faithfully
JOHANN ENGELBRECHT