Agriculture needs an image shake-up in order to attract more black youth to take it up at university, an academic has said.
Dr. Naudé Malan, senior lecturer in development studies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and convener of a project called Izindaba Zokudla, spoke to The Star on the sidelines of a workshop organised by emerging black farmers in Randfontein, west rand, last week.
Figures indicated less youngsters were interested in taking up agricultural studies. This was at the time demands for restitution of land to black people have reached fever pitch.
A delegation of Parliament’s joint constitutional review committee was currently holding public hearings across the country on the possible review of section 25 of the Constitution.
Review of the section could make it possible for the state to expropriate land in the public interest without compensation.
But interest of the majority of the population in agriculture studies appeared to be low.
It could be argued though that studying agriculture was not the only gateway to the sector, but one could gain expertise by graduating in the field.
Each year, agriculture has the least number of matrics writing it. Of the 534 484 matrics that wrote as full-time candidates in 2017, only 98 522 took up agriculture.
Business Studies was written by 204 849 and Geography by 276 771.
Hundreds of schools did not teach agriculture to their learners at all. Malan was asked what needed to be done to attract more matrics to study agriculture.
He said: “That’s a difficult thing because the image of agriculture is often of a white, large and rich landowner who is often very disconnected from the communities around him.
“I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to do it. There is an image problem that we need to change,” Malan said.
Farming also needed to regain its image as a profitable profession, Malan said. Also, farmers needed to be empowered by the state.
“We also need to make agriculture more productive. There are a lot of small farmers who don’t make money and people see it as a bad job. Small farmers need to be empowered so they are more productive. That could be with technology and other value chain approaches.”
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