Tonny Kambi Masha
I attended the 14th International Interdisciplinary Conference that was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from June 26 to 30. The conference was held under the general conference theme: “The Global West, North, East and Africa.”
The theme was centred around increasing concern on how the Global West and North have influenced Africa over the years, and the recent rise of Asian giants such as China and India in contesting the monopoly of the traditional powers. This conference sought to bring new research that has been conducted on the African continent, covering many themes.
My paper was titled: “We want agri-preneurship, but where’s the land? The issue of land as an enabler for agri-preneurship for female agri-preneurs in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.”
It was influenced by viewing agri-preneurship as a possible solution to the persistently low rate of economic growth and in particular the “triple challenges” of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
The function of young women in agri-entrepreneurship takes centre stage in my paper. There are numerous factors for selecting female adolescent agri-entrepreneurs. First, the youth are a priority for a country’s development and sustainability, but it is alarming that South Africa’s youth unemployment rate is so high.
The national youth unemployment rate is rocketing, with more than 40% of youth unemployed. Concerning is the fact that 63.9% of the unemployed are between the ages of 25 and 34.
Despite the call to intensify co-ordinated efforts to assist young people, the outlook is bleak, and, as former president Thabo Mbeki recently stated, South Africa could experience a situation similar to the Arab Spring. Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s 2009 revelation that “50% of young people in South Africa between the ages of 20 and 24 who are wallowing in despair: not in school, not in training, and not employed are a ticking time bomb” lends credence to analyst Moeletsi Mbeki’s 2016 claim that “South Africa is a society with a hidden civil war”.
My paper states that if youth unemployment is not tackled, there is a possibility of negative consequences regarding social ills.
The second reason for choosing female youth agri-preneurs is because of the perception that youth are reluctant to take on agri-preneurship and that despite extensive work done to generate female participation in entrepreneurship generally, women are less likely to become entrepreneurs, and when they do, their returns to entrepreneurship are lower than men’s.
Agri-preneurship development focuses on creating an exciting breed of farmers who undertake a variety of innovative activities in the agricultural sector to become entrepreneurs.
The land issue has been attempted by several writers. Invariably, all these authors reiterate the fact that since the end of minority rule in 1994, the land question has remained an unresolved issue in South Africa, especially the place of women in the current land policy.
Several authors have disclosed the level of animosity surrounding this issue. These authors also provide answers to what Hendricks et al. (2013) refer to as the “land question” – a term used to characterise the phenomenon’s multifaceted dimensions, which include an agricultural component.
Thus, a favourable motivation for this paper is a gap that I have noticed in the literature whereby various authors have addressed the “triple challenges” of poverty, unemployment, and inequality, but none of them devised a framework for these three issues.
For this reason, I have developed a framework for tackling the triple challenges through female youth agri-preneurship. The framework forms part of my forthcoming book on land and notes that blacks can do commercial land farming. It offers several solutions aimed at reaching what Wandile Sihlobo calls “common ground”.
Dr Masha is a leadership catalyst and social realist whose interest in youth matters is the reason why he holds two doctoral degrees in youth matters. He writes in his personal capacity. You can reach him via [email protected]
Cape Times