The National Local Farmers Development Forum recently engaged local farmers in the Makhado municipal area in an agricultural dialogue session, with the aim of dealing with the challenges facing local farmers in the area. The dialogue session was held at the Louis Trichardt Show Grounds last Wednesday.

According to the national chairperson for the Local Farmers Development Forum, Mr Dumi Ndlovu, the session aims to grow agribusiness through dialogue. “We engage local farmers in a dialogue session, where the farmers themselves are given an opportunity to raise their concerns. We have realised that there are so many challenges facing the local farmers in their areas, so we are engaging the national Department of Agriculture as well as municipalities at local level to address these challenges,” he said.

He said the challenges included non-availability of land to equip local farmers, water, poor condition of roads on the farms, planning and capacity building.

“We also want to stimulate the local economy by using agriculture as a tool to alleviate unemployment and poverty,” he said.

Local farmers flocked in numbers to form part of the event. It was during this session that local farmers raised their concerns, which include not being taken seriously by the Department of Agriculture and the Makhado Municipality. Farmers complained that the roads leading to their farms are in a bad condition and even though they had reported this several times to the municipal offices, they are being ignored. Farmers said they would be happy if the forum could talk to the municipality to grade the roads leading to the farms.

The advisory manager for the Vhembe Department of Agriculture, Mr Khathutshelo Muthala, said that when farmers were planning to improve their land, they shouldalso involve traditional leaders in their respective areas as they are the ones who owned the land.

University of Venda students from the School of Agriculture also attended the session.

One of the local farmers, Mr Yusuf Osman, said it would be very helpful if this kind of dialogue session could be held all the time. “The session is very informative and if we can engage in such debates as farmers, we can really learn a lot,” he said.