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Kwanalu

Congress 2019: Advancing agriculture for today and for future generations

On Thursday, 19 September Kwanalu’s 21st Annual Congress takes place bringing together Farmer’s Association delegates, commodities, agricultural-industry leaders, agri-businesses and sector leaders to reflect on the past year, and to look forward to the future together, as a sustainable agricultural community.

Taking place at Pietermaritzburg’s Royal Agricultural Show grounds this year’s theme is: Advancing agriculture for today and our future generations and seeks to explore, discuss and disseminate an enabling environment, which must be established for value-chain development through policy, regulatory and institutional support by the public sector. It also seeks greater involvement of the private sector in agriculture, in order to develop and improve the agricultural value chain through partnerships, with the intention of bringing about some reprieve to the inherent incognito dictate that farmers are the one’s solely responsible for land reform.

It is with much excitement that we look forward to our esteemed line-up of speakers. Our keynote speaker is Chief Justice of South Africa Mogoeng Mogoeng.

Chief Justice Mogoeng was first appointed to the Constitutional Court in 2009 and was elevated to the position of Chief Justice in 2011. It is in that capacity that he is the head of both the country’s Constitutional Court and the Judiciary. He also chairs the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), the SA Judicial Education Institute (SAJEI) Council and the National Efficiency Committee (NEEC). It is with much honour that we welcome Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng to our Annual Congress.

Our second speaker for the day is Professor Danie Brand who currently is the Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State. Prior to his appointment at the UFS, he worked for 24 years as an academic at the Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria. His field is constitutional and administrative law, and constitutional theory. His research and publications focus in particular on the relationship between law and poverty, and the manner in which law regulates, and so both enables and limits access to basic livelihood resources such as housing, food, water, land, medical care and education. This interest extends into legal practice, where he runs a public interest practice as advocate, focussing on housing and land issues. He has since April 2017 acted as Judge in the Gauteng Division of the High Court.

Professor Brand will be speaking to us about creating an enabling environment for agriculture through policy, regulatory and institutional certainty specifically in the context of Section 25 of the Constitution, Expropriation without Compensation and land reform.

Dr Kathy Hurly, Corporate Executive of SA Canegrowers and a Kwanalu Board member, will speak to delegates about greater involvement of the private sector in agriculture, in order to develop and improve the agricultural value chain through partnerships for today and for future generations. Dr Hurly has headed up SA Canegrowers since 2016 and is responsible for strategy implementation and operations including communications, stakeholder engagement, knowledge management and for providing economic and technical service delivery to all sugarcane growers.

Dr Requier Wait, Head of Economics and Trade at Agri SA, will address the issues of the importance of creating an enabling environment for establishing value chain development through policy, regulatory and institutional by the public sector.

As mentioned above, the announcement of the Kwanalu Young Farmer of the Year 2019 will also be announced, with the winner going onto represent the province at the Toyota SA/ Agri SA National Young Farmer of the Year competition 2019 later this year.

We look forward to welcoming all delegates for a productive, inspiring and informative day!