GOVT’S TARGET: 20 000 JOBS IN 3 YEARS

MANZINI - Government aims to generate over 20 000 jobs in the agricultural sector within the next three years.

This was revealed by the Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, during the official launch of the Cold Chain Summit.
The summit, which saw 750 farmers in attendance, was held at Mavuso Trade Exhibition Centre yesterday and it commenced at around 7am.
The summit was graced by the presence of dignitaries, who included, among others, the Minister of Agriculture, Jabulani Mabuza, EswatiniBank Chief Executive Officer Zakhele Lukhele and NAMboard Chief Executive Officer Siphephiso Dlamini, to name a few.

Remarks

When making his remarks the PM mentioned the inaugural Cold Chain Summit could not have come at a better time than yesterday, following the pronouncement by His Majesty the King to the nation at Sibaya that agriculture should be one of the fundamental vehicles to revive the country’s economy.

“As a result, agriculture and agro-processing were highlighted as key growth sectors for economic renewal in the Government Strategic Road map,” he said.
Dlamini said it was for that reason that His Majesty’s government considered the event to be of enormous significance and extremely pivotal in stimulating the objectives of the Strategic Road map towards improving the country’s economy and ensuring that the country attains Vision 2022.

“Since the agribusiness sector has been earmarked as one of the key strategic sectors for growing the economy, we have charged the Ministry of Agriculture with ensuring that it fully embraces a commercial approach across the value chain  with export markets, including beef, goats, poultry, dairy and horticulture sectors,” said the PM.

The PM further highlighted that the ministry was also tasked with stimulating the necessary vibrancy to create much needed jobs through agriculture, and to drive the development of upstream and downstream economic activities as well as agro processing.
He said the programme set for the two days of this summit was a clear demonstration that when the country gets agricultural processes right, a myriad of industries would benefit, and communities, towns, and in extension, the country, will see renewed economic activity, which is essential at this time of sluggish economic growth. The PM cited that he was reliably informed that in a properly functioning agribusiness, one farmer has the capacity to hire at least 10 people per annum.

He said as government they had no reason to doubt that this could be achieved if all partners continued to accelerate job creation initiatives, especially through agriculture.
“The aim is to generate over 20 000 jobs in this sector within the next three years through downstream activities such as LUSIP 1 and LUSIP 2, and the small to medium Earth Dams project which, collectively, shall convert over 4 500 hectares of land to be under irrigation for commercial production of non sugar crops,” he said.

He highlighted that it had already been indicated that the dairy industry was set for exponential growth as the intention was to increase the volume of milk produced in the country to over 100 000 litres per annum.
“Growth is expected in other fresh products such as beef, fish and fruits,” he said.
He encouraged farmers to follow good cold chain management practices and standards in all operations in order to attain a good shelf life for their produce and successfully penetrate export markets, ensuring sustainability and a reliable income.

Identified

Dlamini cited that government had identified key groups for specific interventions in stimulating economic growth across all sectors in accordance with the strategic road map.
He said this included the youth and women, whom he noted with excitement that they had been included and given specific attention in the programme. 
“We need all hands on deck, so to speak, including the inclusion of people living with disability in these ventures,” he said.

Dlamini said he was certain that the agricultural commercialisation initiatives would feed into agro-processing, which relied heavily on outputs from the agriculture sector to create value upstream, thus generating money from the domestic market and realising income from exports while positively increasing the balance of trade.  He mentioned that it was encouraging to note that financial institutions had contributed a significant amount towards meeting the costs of the conference.  Actually, he said they had also lined up a series of packages to finance the initiatives that will come out of this summit.

The PM then welcomed new partners, the Produce Marketing Association (PMA).

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