ATM leader Vuyo Zungula said during his Agriculture Budget Vote debate that Assistant Agricultural Practitioners (AAPs) whose contracts were terminated before time by the department of Agriculture must reinstated.
Thousands of AAPs who are left languishing in the unemployment queue, marched to the Uninion Building in Pretoria last year, to air their grievances and hand over a memorandum.
In January last year, the department hired about 5000 AAPs who were to be exposed to the work environment while taking the pressure off the current officers who are unable to cope with the work load. But they were only contracted for two shorts stints of three months each before their contracts were terminated. This despite the fact that President Cyril Ramaphosa had initially announced that the programme would run for three years.
Zungula said there’s a problem of high food prices in South Africa, which is a result of few farmers which are responsible for food supply.
“There needs to be a farming revolution in our country, where all people with arable land are encouraged to farm. We want that a budget must be availed to employ AAPs. We have AAPs who are trained and want to make a contribution in our country but are not employed,” said Zungula.
He said the almost 5000 AAPs whose contracts were terminated must be reinstated so that “our children” can work.
He added that the agriculture ministry must work with the department of education to reopen all agricultural colleges in each municipality.
This, he said, must be coupled with having agriculture as a subject in high school as it will boost food supply.
Zungula urged the minister to release state farms to the people and speed up land restitution and increase assistant to black farmers
In his budget speech, Minister John Steehuisen said that extension officers remain an important component of support to farmers and the department will continue to explore ways to increase both the quantity and quality of services and support offered by extension officers.
“This will include exploring innovations as well as public-private partnerships with industry and sectoral bodies to potentially increase the number of extension officers and the training of them to render the services our farmers need. After being promised a nine-month extension on their contracts after two short stints of three months each, thousands of assistant agriculture practitioners suddenly heard that their employment had been terminated,” said Steenhuisen.
