Free State Agriculture: The Path Forward

An important strategic session held on March 19th, attended by Lindy and Prof. Willemse, identified five key strategic points or objectives for Vrystaat Landbou to address. The session aimed to prevent a repeat of past failures where excellent strategies were developed but never implemented.

The five strategic points are:

• Improve Communication: Led by André van Reynsburg, the goal is to develop a new communication strategy. This includes regularly visiting farmers' associations to remove uncertainties, standardizing communication across all associations to ensure a consistent organizational feel, and making all declarations member-centric, focusing on their interests. A separate communication strategy is also needed for new member recruitment, as this has not been a strong area previously.
• Training: Dr. Hanne Bassa is championing this area. Key actions include developing manuals and duty lists for farmers' associations and regional representatives. This initiative is seen as the foundation for a stable and sustainable structure, emphasizing the need for uniform training across the board to prevent inconsistencies in communication and operations between regions.
• Review Structure: Friedel is responsible for this point, as the current structure is perceived as too shallow, lacking sufficient depth. Critical actions involve:

    ◦ Reinstating the members' affairs committee, which was previously merged with the financial committee, to better monitor member numbers and issues.

    ◦ Confirming the objectives and actions of all committees.

    ◦ Filling vacant regional posts (currently three to four).

    ◦ Purifying farmers' association structures and enforcing Vrystaat Landbou membership, especially noting that 15% of farmers' association chairpersons are not Vrystaat Landbou members, which violates constitutional principles.

    ◦ Establishing guidelines for appointing ground-level management members, ensuring that capable individuals are selected who could potentially become strong regional representatives.

• Evaluate Tradition vs. Innovation: Led by Johan Oondal, the young farmer chairperson, this point involves a critical examination of traditional Vrystaat Landbou activities. The objective is to question practices simply done out of tradition and decide if they remain beneficial or if they act as an impediment. This includes confirming the relevant format for annual congresses and defining appropriate terms for ground-level, regional, and executive committee management positions, considering that long tenures (e.g., 8.5 years for a regional representative) might hinder succession strategies. Optimal synergies at the office level also need to be defined.
• Budget Revision: This point acknowledges that the financial impact of changes resulting from the other four points will necessitate a budget review. Additionally, other financial considerations include rethinking a loyalty card concept, carefully increasing membership fees (as high fees deter new members), launching a bulk order system, and investigating the feasibility of farmers' associations paying membership fees, which they then collect from their members (a model potentially used in the Western Cape).

The overall sentiment is that no strategy is valuable without implementation. Unlike a previous strategic session in 2015 where nothing was implemented, the current task forces, whose names were mentioned throughout the presentation, are tasked with ensuring these strategies are put into action. This process follows a "graspy" framework: groundwork, research, analysis, strategy, plan, implementation, and evaluation, with the current focus on strategy development before moving to detailed planning and action.