Said Senwes CEO and Agbiz Chairman Francois Strydom: “The meeting was very positive and productive where both groups gave an overview of their activities and aligned our aims as a State Department and major Agriculture role player in South Africa.
We decided to draft an agreement between the two parties with a view to further agriculture and rural development, specifically in the Free State. This would then build into the National Development Plan which is connected to the Job Summit and the Investment Summit, which in-turn builds into the SONA of 2019 and hopefully will be included in the budget to be tabled in early 2019.
We are very excited with this opportunity and we will be working on specific plans and identified projects which we will share at a later stage once the agreement has been concluded. At that stage we will be more specific regarding action plans and deliverable timelines.
We highly commend the process of the Department of reaching out to the private sector and role players. We are of the view that this is the right way forward, that is a partnership between the Department, State and Provincial Government and private initiative to make our country work.
Mr Mmuso Tsoametsi, the Deputy Director General of the Free State Department of Agriculture who headed up the delegation echoed Francois comments. “Senwes is an important stakeholder because of its footprint in the grain commodity and its knowledge and skills. We agree that partnership is the way to go to achieve our strategic objectives and goals in the sector,” he said.