Farmers urged to participate in the Producer/Farmer Register

Minister of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), Senzeni Zokwana, recently announced the establishment of the Producer/Farmer Register (PFR).

During the recent launch of the PFR, Zokwana said that the register would run from 2018 until 2021 alongside the Census of Commercial Agriculture (COCA), which was being conducted with the assistance of Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

“Our extension officers will be approaching smallholder producers and farmers and I am urging them to open their gates to allow this project to succeed,” he said.

The PFR was intended to address seven areas, one of which aimed to improve “inaccurate and misrepresented statistics of farmers in the non-commercial sector”.

There would be a strong focus on using the data to identify smallholders and track beneficiaries of agricultural support and development strategies.

It was also intended to enable the development of indicators in line with planning tools such as the Medium-Term Strategic Framework and the National Development Plan, as well as provide the department with a basis to measure performance across all levels of the sector and establish a frame of reference for future surveys.

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Sourced: Farmer’s Weekly