Gauteng Business 2016 edition

OVERVIEW
Finally, a variety of the beverages
in AVI’s portfolio (including Ciro)
are produced at the group’s
Kempton Park facilities.
By the numbers
About 84% of South African
households engaged in agriculture
are headed by people with
incomes of less than R38,400 a
year according to a Statistics
South Africa survey. However,
almost 2 800 of those in the
high-earning category are from
Gauteng. It is the highest number
in this segment among the
provinces, even though Gauteng
(279 000 agricultural households)
ranks only a distant fourth behind
KwaZulu-Natal (717 000),
the Eastern Cape (597 000) and
Limpopo (468 000).
Women make up 48% of agricultural
household heads in
South Africa. In the Eastern Cape
(55%), KwaZulu-Natal (54%) and
Limpopo (52%) they outnumber
men. Regarding rural access to
water, the survey found that 20%
of the households nationally had
no access to piped water, and a
further 28% had piped water
only outside their yards. In this
respect again Gauteng and the
Free State seem best served.
Most of the rural households use
electricity for lighting and cooking,
though wood is also used
to a great extent for cooking in
KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the
Eastern Cape.
Meanwhile, Economic
Development, Agriculture and
Rural Development MEC for
Gauteng Lebogang Maile said
access to land was key to transforming agriculture in the province,
“The decline in mining activity and the attendant consequences of
deindustrialisation, the agricultural industry presents real possibilities
for a shift in the orientation of these regions. More importantly, as an
industry that can propel growth in other sectors placing Gauteng on
different economic trajectory.
“We must emerge out of this summit with a strategy that merges
our agenda to promote food security, integrate black farmers, lessened
our dependence on food imports, and empower poor communities
to take charge of their nutritional needs by supporting
community and household food gardens on a massive scale. We
must emerge with a resounding commitment to use agriculture as
a launching pad toward the realization of the transformation, modernization
and reindustrialisation programme. I believe that agro
processing, along with a clear strategy for economic diversification,
can give the economies of the West Rand and Sedibeng a new lease
on life,” concludes Maile.
83 GAUTENG BUSINESS 2016