The Department of Agriculture and Land Reform’s Farmer Support Directorate will from next month revolutionize its service delivery to farmers throughout the Northern Cape Province through the Farmer’s Green Book. The Department’s Extension Officers will in their consultations utilize the Farmer’s Green Book which seeks of the farmer to rate the quality of service rendered to him/her. Both the farmer and the extension officer must ensure that the information contained in the manual is accurate as they must endorse the form.
Workshops aimed at capacitating farmers about the significance of the book are to be conducted in April. Implementation of the Farmer’s Green Book will also take off in April as a pilot project for 12 months. The Department’s army of over seventy extension officers and district managers has riposted with enthusiasm towards the implementation of the book which had been dubbed as “a beacon of service excellence” at a workshop in Upington this week. The Northern Cape is the eighth province to hold its Green book workshop with Gauteng expected to hold their workshop this Friday. The book was launched by the National Minister of Agriculture Ms Lulu Xingwana late last year during the Ilima/Letsema campaign at Hartswater in the Northern Cape.
The purpose of the Farmer's green book is to record the farmer's daily interactions with various agricultural advisors both in government and private sector. It also seeks to provide an opportunity to the farmer to evaluate the quality of the products and service rendered to him/her by the advisor. Part of the section in the book provides the profile of the farmer's farming/business enterprise including its history, main commodity/production and the inventory in the farm.
