Mohoma Mobung (MM) is the Free State Provincial Government initiative in line with the Zero Hunger Strategy. Mohoma Mobung is a multi-year mega Public and Private Partnership business concept, which revolves around income generation through farming in the rural area of the province, and the creation of on and off-farm agribusiness, value chain enterprises and Black Economic Empowerment.It is a strategic approach that aims at addressing low household incomes by increasing agricultural production, value and profitability of household agricultural production, Agro-processing and Marketing.
It includes crop, fisheries and livestock, related agro-processing and agribusiness enterprises and market access concerns. Eligible entities are Cooperatives, Companies, Partnership and Proprietary farms, Agricultural produce marketing committees/boards,Cottage‐industries and Growers associations. Agro-processing has been identified by the government as a key driver of job creation in the agriculture sector as identified in the New Growth Path document.It will bring more enterprises and investors into agriculture in order to stimulate competition and demand for agricultural products for the domestic and export markets. The total budget required is more than R1.2 billion and has the potential of creating more than 10 000 decent permanent jobs and more than 100 000 indirect jobs.
The plan urges the private sector to invest in agriculture and agro-processing by building factories for the manufacturing. It also focuses strongly on expanding infrastructure in rural areas in order to bring smaller farmers into the national agricultural market and to reduce the costs of logistics for all farmers. A critical part of the infrastructure programme would focus amongst others on speeding up the building of new dams, irrigation systems, the allocation of water rights, etc.
Agriculture and agro-business has a role in championing the country’s foreign policy agenda, and the Free State government has started levelling the playing field through Mohoma Mobung for investors.