South Africa’s State-owned financial institution the Land Bank has a number of key deliverables, but one of the most important is to help transform the sector by assisting emerging and smallholder farmers.
The Land Bank is one of the key institutions at the Africa Agri Investment Indaba 2017 taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Land Bank executive manager: Strategy, and Communications, Sydney Soundy said “how we measure our success as a development institute is through our contribution to economic growth, our contribution to the creation of employment opportunities in the sector and the pursuit of food security for the sector, as well as attention to the issues of environmental sustainability”.
“We have a specific interest in the transformation of the sector, so to that extent, we have a program on introducing emerging farmers and smallholder farmers into the sector, which means that we need to provide specific mechanisms through which emerging farmers and smallholder farmers can enter the sector.
“This requires us providing a framework to support new entrants, and as you know, the challenges with new entrance relate to access to finance and we are part of that solution,” said Soundy.
The three-day agri investment indaba, sponsored by the Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency (Wesgro) and the Western Cape provincial government, has welcomed leaders in the agricultural economy from around the world, with speakers and representatives from 30 countries.