Africa-Press – Eswatini. Eswatini Horticulture Association (EHA) has been urged to align with the ministry of agriculture’s strategic vision.
The vision is to see an agriculture sector which optimises utilisation of agricultural resources and creating wealth for Emaswati.
This was said by the ministry’s Principal Secretary, Sydney Simelane, during an EHA stakeholder’s meeting held at The George Hotel, Manzini.
Simelane said this was a big vision, which requires a full understanding of natural resource endowment, production technologies along the value chain, human resource capacities, institutions and networks to drive the value chains.
“It is with this understanding that that the ministry has been engaging various stakeholders to inform of plans and implementation arrangements to achieve this vision,” the principal secretary stated.
He mentioned that during such consultations and assessments, it came out clear that there were specific roles for government as well as the private sector to deliver inclusive growth that would create wealth for the people.
“Given the foregoing and the outcome of the Agriculture Indaba held in June 2021, the ministry has endeavoured to facilitate and lead the planning and setting up of competent institutions and policy instruments to drive inclusive and sustainable growth in the sector,” said Simelane.
He stated that the FAO had accompanied them in this initiative and helped them embrace the Agri-invest Approach, which they were currently using to set up systematic implementation for policies.
“The priority game-changers that are being pursued under this approach include facilitating setting up of agriculture industry associations, where horticulture, grains and livestock are the three priorities of the association where the target is to improve coordination of players, organisation, systematic planning and linkages along the value chains for farmers, traders, service providers and processors,” he said.
He mentioned that such institutions were going to work with government to inform key investments, policies and commit to deliver agreed outputs in each of the prioritised value chains.
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