Eastern Cape Agriculture MEC Nonceba Kontsiwe has continued her drive to equip traditional leaders with tools to cultivate the land, strengthen food security, and stimulate agricultural enterprises.On her latest visit, MEC Kontsiwe officially handed over a tractor, farming implements, and a pregnant heifer to Queen Nolutho Matanzima of the AbaThembu Base-Rhode Kingdom in Qamata, under Intsika Yethu Local Municipality. The tractor, valued at nearly R1 million, comes with a disc plough, planter, and reaper equipment expected to boost production, enhance productivity, and improve rural livelihoods.
This follows last month s handover of a tractor and implements to Queen Nonzuzo Sigcawu at Nqadu Great Place. The MEC emphasised that traditional leaders should play a central role in advancing agricultural development in rural areas.
What is important about targeting the kingdoms is that we want to work with traditional leaders to mobilise and encourage their subjects to participate in our programmes. We believe this will strengthen our campaign to ensure that people work their land and fight poverty. We want to help communities produce their own food through the provision of tools to cultivate the land and farm livestock,” MEC Kontsiwe said.
In addition to the farming support, seamstresses in the area also received industrial sewing machines to help improve the quality of their garments, increase their earnings, and better meet client demands. Queen Matanzima expressed excitement about the department s investment in her nation, adding that the industrial sewing machine and the overlooker will assist them to train young girls in sewing.
The skills of these young girls will advance because they were using small machines, but the bigger and faster ones will assist a lot. We are thankful to the Provincial Government for this investment as it will assist us a lot,” she said. She added that they had 10 hectors of land where they plan to produce vegetables and potatoes and the tractor will assist in production. The department will also assist with the fencing of their land.
