The minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Thoko Didiza has announced that subsistence producers are invited to apply for the presidential employment stimulus initiative, from 10 to 22 December 2020.
Didiza said the program aim to sustain and increase employment in the agriculture sector. She added that a total of 75 000 subsistence producers will be supported by farming input vouchers.
“Input vouchers will retain self-employment in the sector and support food value chains. The department will employ unemployed nary sec youth and agricultural graduates to work as verification officers. This will happen during the implementation of the programme. The youth programme aims to support the creation of six thousand temporary jobs. Interested subsistence producers can apply through the phone on USSD code*134*4536# using any network. There is no application fee and forms will be accessible from the phone once the USSD code has been entered. Application forms will be available in 11 South African official languages and the department will take 150 000 applications using the USSD system”, she said.
Didiza said the principle of first come first served will be used and they are looking at certain criteria for people to qualify.
“Applicants should be 18 years or older, have a South African identity document, should not be employed by the government, currently actively involved in agricultural production and have not received DALRRD support in a current financial year. One application will be permitted per household, commodities that will be supported are vegetables, maize, soybeans, sugarcane, cotton, poultry and livestock”, Didiza added.
She said the support targets vulnerable individuals, 50% women, 40% youth, 6% people living with disabilities, child-headed households, farm-dwellers, farm-workers and military veterans.
“An amount of support is between R1 000 and R9 000. Subsistence farmers should be aware that the type and quantities of support provided will be limited to the commodity applied for. It will also go with the size of current operation physically verified on the site”, she added.
