Leveraging Partnerships and Maximising Skills in the Eastern Cape

The purpose of the Eastern Cape Red Meat Project (ECRMP) is to enable communal and emerging farmers to participate more fully in formal red meat markets. Toward this goal ComMark has drafted two new Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture (ECDA). As ComMark, the ARC and the ECDA share strategic interests in the promotion and development of emerging and communal cattle farmers in the Eastern Cape, these partnerships make development sense.

The ECDA and the ARC have been supporting the ECRMP’s scaling-up process by providing trainers for ComMark’s local farmer capacity-building initiatives. Currently one ECDA employee provides technical training to farmers through the pilot custom feeding programme in the Ngqushwa and Peddie districts of the Amathole District Municipality (ADM). As the programme is set to expand to the Alice and Keiskammahoek districts, the new MoU will allow the ECDA staff to be seconded to ECRMP as the ADM Field Officer. Similarly, the MoU with ARC includes the possibility of seconding a suitably qualified member of its O R Tambo District Municipality to ECRMP.