Transformation newsletter march 2013
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TRANSFORMATION NEWSLETTER – March 2013: March is always a busy month for the citrus industry, preparing for the season to come. Apart from the CGDC Board Meeting being held, the Citrus Growers Association, Citrus Academy, variety focus groups and the CMF meeting all held their first meetings of the year- all in one week. All of these the abovementioned meetings are very important to the industry, as they set the tone of issues that need to be addressed. As you all know the Chamber has representation on all these committees and Boards. The CGD Chamber this year opened their meeting by reviewing if they are on the right track in transformation. The Chamber invited a guru in the agricultural and market access sectors to come to the meeting and give a presentation on the status of agriculture and transformation in the country, touching on some guiding documents, such as NDP, White paper on transformation. With such a presentation it also set the tone and opened the minds of the Chamber delegates to things that need to be specifically targeted this year. After the presentation the Chamber had a long debate around transformation as the presentation gave a lot of food for thought, with many questions arising from the committee members. It was asked if they were indeed on the right track and if they are, are the Chamber doing justice to the rest of the constituencies that we represent. Following on from a request from the CGA Board of Directors, the Chamber elected various Chamber members to the different committees within CGA for information dissemination. These committees are Logistics, Consumer Assurance, Market Access and Skills Development. The people who were elected are: Citrus Growers’ Development Chamber Committee Structures
The above elected chamber members have the responsibility of ensuring that all information coming out of these meetings is sent to growers via the transformation desk, as well as being relayed during the study groups meetings as do the CGDC representatives on the variety focus groups. Amongst the points for discussions were the MoU’s for recap and with Mpumalanga that are in a final stage. The MoU for recap is for CGA or the Chamber to assist rural development in implementing the programme. This will assist so that we can ensure that all our growers in different regions benefit from the programme. The chamber also discussed that there is a great need for the alignment of our programmes in lobbying support with the agenda of the different departments as every year both the Ministers of rural development and DAFF deliver a Budget vote that sets the tone for the programme of action. By doing so the Chamber is in line with the government in working together for a better life of our growers. The Chamber can now look at the budget vote speech and see which of our transformation initiatives are in line with the budget speech. We will then engage the respective departments accordingly. The same goes for the provincial departments that also call for every grower to notify the transformation desk of the programmes of the provincial departments.  |