Christo says: The year that was
[{“type”:”text”,”content”:”Does Agri SA use this money wisely and does it achieve maximum impact?nnLet me start with oversight. This is exercised by the farmersu2019 representatives on the board of directors, Chambers, Centres of Excellence and Audit and Risk committee, Remco and Setcom. They make sure that every rand is leveraged to extract maximum value. Also, let me outline what our farmers get in return for this amount.nnAgri SAu2019s Disaster Aid Fund supported our farming communities affected by drought, fires and civil unrest during this past year with funding to the value of R4 050 639. An additional amount of R4 858 777 was channeled by the Agri Securitas Trust Fund towards farmer affiliations to finance projects to safeguard farmers, farm workers and their families who experience high levels of crime. Projects include, among others, the installment of camera systems and control rooms. nnIn total, our farmers benefitted from indirect funding to the value of R8 909 416 which means that each farmer received R556 per annum or R46 per month back into their pockets. For every u2018investmentu2019 of R43, farmers receive R46 in return for disaster or security funding. Well done to Kobus Visser and the trustees of Agri Securitas Trust Fund as well as Andrea Campher and the board members of the Agri SA Disaster Relief Foundation whou2019ve made all of this possible. nnAlso, thank you to Omri van Zyl and the board members of Agri Enterprises, which is the business arm of Agri SA and responsible for training black farmers, in collaboration with AgriSETA and other institutions, and the establishment of black farmers in collaboration with the Patrice Motsepe Foundation. Approximately 700 developing farmers are benefitting from the training programme that is currently being rolled out nationwide and R66 million was approved for the first few black commercial farmer partnerships projects.”,”position”:0,”id”:”KK6TN1rqm8aOarpf”}]