Agriculture is the backbone of our economy and so the youth, like me, were motivated to take up Agriculture as a career. My name is Nsovo and I am a former Assistant Agricultural Practitioner with a masters degree in Agriculture.

In 2022, my hopes of employment, and those of youths like me, were initially realised by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, which created vacancies for state employed Assistant Agricultural Practitioners (AAPs) - a newly created designation. This entry level post was specially formed by the Department to assist in the employment of graduates in the Agricultural sector, who had difficulty finding jobs as Agricultural Advisers (which requires work experience and a higher qualification). As AAPs, we were hired to advise farmers on agriculture and provide them with the necessary expertise to farm successfully, while simultaneously gaining enough experience to upskill ourselves and become Agricultural Advisers

What started out as a brilliant initiative by the Department that would not only benefit the youth, and the agricultural sector, but also improve employment rates and diversity in the sector, quickly turned to ash. Surely feasibility studies were done beforehand to ensure that the funding allocated would be sufficient for the number of graduates employed over the specified period? So what happened to the funds allocated to this programme? 

We call on all South Africans to demand that enough is enough and for the Department to account to us, the affected graduates, and the South African public, and give us a breakdown of how the money allocated for the programme was spent in a matter of 3 months! We call on Parliament to hold the Department to account!