Some 600 unemployed young people from the Ngqushwa, Sundays River, Kouga and Makana local municipalities in the Eastern Cape are beneficiaries of the National Skills Fund (NSF)-funded rural skills development initiative being implemented by Lavender Sky (ACOSA).

The learners are being trained in plant production, crop analysis and livestock, small medium and micro enterprise (SMME) and co-operative development as well as farm equipment.

The initiative aims to provide critical and scarce agricultural skills through short skills courses and learnerships, access to input and output agricultural markets, and to build capacity to administer land and farms.

Boitumelo Vuyokazi Makhubela (32) encourages other young people to see the vast potential in agriculture, which she says is broad and in demand. Hailing from the small town, Hankey, in the Kouga Local Municipality, she was unemployed when she first heard about the ACOSA programme from a relative. Within her first six months in the programme, she already sees herself working as a management assistant in five to 10 years.

Phathiswa Mntini (34), from Jeffreys Bay in Kouga, says that youngsters must take this opportunity of training with both hands and reach for the stars. In a few years, she sees herself working on a productive farm or land-related project.

The ACOSA project, which commenced in October 2018 with R12, million approved funding from the NSF, focusses on building capacity to support the establishment of new commercial farmers. The training covers institutional innovation in rural financial markets, particularly in market-assisted land reforms, facilitating skills development services in farms, business and farm management, technology, financial management, mixed farming systems, poultry and landscaping.

This article was published in the NSF 2018/19 Annual Report