EU farmer support programme ends

THE Emerging Farmers’ Support Programme (EFSP), which has been running over the past two years and is supported by the European Union, is officially coming to an end in four weeks.

The EFSP Steering Committee last week held its final meeting under the current financial agreement with the EU. Project Co-ordinator Bertus Kruger gave a summary of the achievements of this programme. During the past two years the programme reached 2 528 farmers through farmers’ and information days, and 1 073 farmers attended practical courses, while 172 farmers attended pre-settlement courses and 2 379 farmers were visited by the mentors on an individual or group basis. According to the latest NAU newsletter, the EU evaluated the programme in terms of relevancy, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. It concluded that the EFSP worked successfully.Over the past two years, the EFSP compiled eight production manuals for emerging farmers, covering topics like rangeland management, stock farming, animal health, agronomy, financial and labour management.At the request of the emerging farmers, three of these manuals are being translated into Afrikaans. ‘The EFSP project team currently negotiates with Germany’s technical agency GTZ for the continuation of the programme for the next three years. There is a great demand that the programme should not only be limited to emerging farmers, but to include communal and established farmers,’ Kruger said last week.