Campaign to make ‘own food’ fashionable
THE National Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development in partnership with the Eastern Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform are inculcating a culture of ‘own food’ production at both school and household level.
Today [March 25] the two institutions which are both catalyst of agriculture set foot in Ngqushwa under the Amathole District Municipality to launch the School Food Gardens and Right to Learn Campaign.
At the launch the two departments handed over gardening tools to local co-operatives and two local schools, namely Feni Primary and Nathaniel Pamla High. Learners from the two institutions of learning were also aided with backpacks and sanitary towels as means of support and creating conducive learning environment.
With DRDAR pushing households to produce their own food and the Nathaniel Pamla High offering Agricultural studies as a compulsory subject though resources are limited, the departments managed to kill two birds with one stone.
Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thokozile Didiza said the gardening tools would entice learners to pursue agriculture studies even beyond school premises.
“Family members of some of the learners here are part of crop-producing initiatives in the community. And them having unlimited access to gardening tools is going to help them perfect the art of working the land and producing their own food. Even the school will be able to produce its own vegetables and meet the state-subsidized nutrition programme. Agriculture, crop production in particular mustn’t be used as punishment at schools where mischievous pupils are sent to water plants. It makes children see the sector as a form of punishment and undesirable field,” said Didiza.
The Ngqushwa area is among those that are experiencing water shortages in the Amathole District -something that hinders fluent agricultural production.
The newly appointed MEC for DRDAR in the Eastern Cape, Nonkqubela Pieters advised household food producers to look into rainwater harvesting as one of the low-cost ways to access water.
“Most parts of the province were hard hit by drought and its effects are still felt in some areas even today hence we have taken it upon ourselves to revitalize and drill boreholes. But there are even other ways a household food producer can use in order to have water for their crops and livestock like harvesting rainwater and store the precious resource in containers like tanks and buckets. We need to be creative in times like these,” said Pieters.
Didiza added that government would also look closely into the National programme of ‘one hectare; one household’ which assists households to acquire land so they can grow their own food.
She said that with the sanitary towels they wanted to bring an end to the prominent culture of school girls not going to school when they are on periods –a phenomenon that tramples on their right to education.
Grade 12 learner at Nathaniel Pamla High, Yolisa Marambana is among the pupils who wish to pursue agricultural studies and effectively carve a career in the field.
Marambana said that as much as they were passionate about agriculture, limited resources doused their spark for the sector.
“It’s demotivating because some of the things we are taught in the classroom remained an unproven theory but with the tools we received today I believe a lot will change,” she said.
The co-operatives that bagged crop-watering material, shovels, hoes, seedlings, wheelbarrows among the tools produce various types of vegetables sell their produce to local markets and in the process circulating money around the Ngqushwa area.
Nobubele Mkoko of Zamukhanyo Project said the tools would help them maximize their business.
The two government departments will extend the programme to Emabheleni Village in Healdtown tomorrow just outside Fort Beaufort.