The challenges faced by the Nelson Mandela Bay Agricultural sector will soon be a thing of the past.
That was a message from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor, Athol Trollip when he met the Agricultural sector at City Hall today, January 23, 2017.
Today our municipality is holding sector specific IDP public hearings. Today we deal with the agricultural sector. Thx for great turnout.?? pic.twitter.com/C9qzOD5jdw
— Athol Trollip (@AtholT) January 23, 2017
As a continuation of the Integrated Development Plan Public Participation sessions that were a huge success last year, the municipality, led by Executive Mayor Trollip hosted a workshop with key role players of the Agricultural sector.
The consultation was part of a series of workshops that the municipality will host with different role players in all sectors.
The workshops will assist the municipality in drawing up its long term strategic vision.
Addressing the workshop, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor Athol Trollip said that although the region is an urban area, it has a fully-fledged agricultural sector.
“We also have many subsistence farmers, who need to be supported by government in the interest of growth and development. This is the most comprehensive IDP process where we have consulted all sectors and communities in the metro. Currently we are dealing with individual sectors that build our economy, agriculture being one of those, which has a high potential of job creation and reduction of poverty,” said the Executive Mayor.
He said whatever happens in the next five years will be determined by the community of Nelson Mandela Bay and role players within different sectors, with business as one of the anchors.
“We want to make the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro an iconic destination of choice. We also want to ensure that not only the neighbouring municipalities but the Eastern Cape Province at large is on the map as a key agricultural and export hub. More importantly, we want to make sure the city works for you,” added Executive Mayor Trollip.
The city plans to populate the five year Integrated Development Plan and have regular dialogue sessions with the public and relevant sectors. This will ensure that the municipality commit itself publicly to the people of the metro.
At the workshop attendees where given an opportunity to contribute and advise the municipality on how they would like the city to work with them in improving their sector. The contributions covered areas like logistics, road and transport infrastructure, drought relief, export opportunities and integrated planning between municipality and the industry.
Mentorship programmes between the commercial and subsistence farmers were also mentioned as one of the areas that the government can act on as a facilitator. Funding also came up as one of the hindering factors, more especially for emerging farmers.
NMB Communications
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