Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson offered some additional insight on Thursday into the agro-logistics and rural infrastructure projects that make up the eleventh strategic integrated project, or Sip 11, being overseen by the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC).

The initiative forms part of a broader suite of 17 priority projects that were unveiled by the PICC in April.

Four of the other Sips are ‘geographic’ in nature and focus on the transport, water and energy infrastructure required for the growth and development of key corridors.

There are also three ‘energy’ Sips, three ‘spatial’ Sips (of which Sip 11 is one), three ‘social infrastructure’ Sips (encompassing the development of public hospitals, schools and universities) and two ‘knowledge’ Sips (the Square Kilometre Array, the Meerkat and telecommunications networks). A number of regional-integration projects have been placed together to form Sip 17.

The Sip 11 initiative embraces several projects designed to support investments that could stimulate job creation, small-farmer development and the expansion of farm output.

In her Budget vote address to lawmakers, Joemat-Pettersson said the projects would include:

• The creation of fresh produce marketing depots for smallholder farmers.
• The development of production infrastructure for crops and animals.
• The revitalisation of various irrigation schemes, including the Vaalharts-Taung irrigation scheme.
• The refurbishment and upgrading of the agricultural colleges.
• And, various other projects, such as the creation of grain storage facilities and rehabilitated irrigation schemes in the former homelands; the building of fences, including border fences; and the upgrading of animal quarantine facilities on the borders.

“These infrastructure projects will be implemented in a phased approach. In addition, the rail freight network will be made more easily and cheaply available for the transport of bulk agriculture, forestry and fisheries commodities.”

To support the initiatives, the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme had been allocated R1.5-billion, of which over R52.5-million would be used for infrastructure at the agricultural colleges. Some R320-million had also been set aside for the agriculture extension recovery plan, R762-million for on-farm infrastructure and R398-million for flood-damaged infrastructure.