SABC News reports that farmers from Lufafa village in Ntabankulu, Eastern Cape, have expressed concerns that food insecurity will remain a significant challenge unless farming skills are passed on to the younger generation. More than 200 learners from surrounding schools attended a livestock and grain crops farming expo at Qhamani farm, where they learned about the importance of farming tools, fertilisers, soil sampling, testing, and production processes.

Local farmer Qhamani Zobotsho stressed the importance of imparting agricultural skills to combat poverty and unemployment, and to boost the local economy. “From the Eastern Cape we are one of the poorest provinces yet we have a vast amount of land that is not used to its full advantage,” Zobotsho said. “We feel that the little knowledge on how to handle this abundant soil has to be shared with the upcoming generations so that they may find better ways of doing what we are doing.”

Learners Othandile Cekuse and Oku Mphongoma expressed their willingness to pursue agriculture and contribute to the country’s food production. Cekuse emphasized the need to grow their own food to become self-reliant and reduce dependence on external resources. “We learn that we should be able to grow our own food so that we do not depend on other resources so that we develop our own and become our own business people because as prices get higher and higher as time goes the economy keeps dropping. We need to grow our own crops so that we will be able to feed and have our own resources other than outside resources,” Cekuse said.

by Nkululeko Nyembezi