1. ABC VISION

• The WSU Agri-Business Centre (ABC) vision is:

A prosperous, productive, inclusive and competitive household sector in regenerative food and agricultural systems.

2.         ABC MISSION

• The ABC strives to improve the quality of life of agricultural households by promoting their equitable access to secure land for the full and sustainable employment of their labour and capital.
• 
  

3. ABC SCOPE OF WORK

• The primary focus of ABC in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, Africa and globally is:

1. community-engagement;
2. training and education;
3. research;
4. leading and facilitating agribusiness activities in core academic functions of research, teaching and learning in WSU campuses;
5. short learning programmes;
6. fundraising for agricultural households development; and
7. facilitating formal academic programmes in respect of food and agriculture, which might lay the basis for the online School of Agriculture.

1. Core ABC structural costs – i.e. office space; staffing; machines and equipment; and operational expenses – are borne by the University (ABC, 2017, p4).
2. ABC is expected to initiate fundraising activities to underwrite its operations (Ibid).
3. Given that agribusiness is a strategic governmental initiative, ABC is expected to unlock State resources in line with the National Development Plan (Ibid).
4. ABC is expected to cover the funding of its operations by outside sources, which include government and state-owned agencies and private-sector donors (Ibid).

• Target ABC beneficiaries are mainly household producers and consumers of food, fibre and agricultural products in rural and urban areas; traditional authorities; three spheres of government; previously disadvantaged individuals and communities; youth; women; people with disability; cooperative businesses; community-based organisations; finance institutions; agrilogistic firms; food and agriprocessors, traders, retailers and consumers.
• 
  

• ABC beneficiaries can benefit through the following activities:

1. Physical and online training and education.
2. Research, technology transfer and innovation.
3. Establish and maintenance of communal land administration systems – including the communal land rights recording and registration, surveying, valuation, spatial and land use planning and development; and communal land disputes resolution.
4. Registration and maintenance of agricultural household enterprises, financial and tax records compliance.
5. Establish cooperative businesses to provide agricultural households with: finance and investment; physical and communication infrastructure, biofuel and renewable energy; improved animal breeding stock; seeds and seedlings; medicines and chemicals, machinery and equipment, water users associations, drinking water and irrigation; agriprocessing, packaging, and logistics; storage, trade, marketing, aggregation and offtake agreements; youth outreach, career guidance to produce future-ready graduates, agrintrepreneurs, change agents and leaders in food and agriculture, land reform and rural development; household and school food security and nutrition through agricultural schools and extension services.
6. Facilitate the public protection, restoration, and promotion of soil health and the sustainable use of communal agroecological resources by sustainable forest management, halting and reversing land degradation and biodiversity loss.
7. Establish agricultural information big data to track, assess and produce evidence based reports on the impact of government service delivery initiatives to move agricultural households out poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment.
8. Exchange knowledge and information on agricultural household businesses and livelihoods’ progress through publications, workshops, conferences, colloquiums, exhibitions and study tours.

• ABC has successfully performed the following:

1. Trained 50 agricultural health technicians in partnership with the Tsolo Agricultural and Rural Development Institute;
2. Provided poultry training to 20 members of agricultural households at the WSU Postdam Campus in East London;
3. Facilitated the Annual General Meeting of the OR Tambo Farmers’ Association;
4. Assisted the Ndebele Traditional Council to establish the Ndebele Development Agency.
5. Compiled the Country Report for South Africa on the Food Systems to the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September 2021;
6. Compiled a Report for the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development on Communal Land Tenure;
7. Presented a paper to the Colloquium organised by the Small Scale Agribusiness and Rural Non-Farm Enterprise Research Niche (Sarne) on the Transformation of
8. the South African Food System to create an enabling platform for small-scale entrepreneurial development towards reduction in rural unemployment; and
9. Wrote a Closing Report for the Western Cape Department of Agriculture on the Plan and the Framework for the mediation process of the Dispute between Hortgro and the Deciduous Fruit Development Chamber (DFDC).

• ABC contact details is Ms Banele Nodada at  bnodada@wsu.ac.za and cell number +27768349980.