How Nerpo Is Adapting To A Changing Livestock Sector

Changes in the livestock business environment have motivated the National Emergent Red Meat Producers’ Organisation (NERPO) to review its strategy and improve services to its members. NERPO managing director Aggrey Mahanjana spoke to Siyanda Sishuba about future plans.

- Siyanda Sishuba

What direction will NERPO take over the next 10 years?

In January 2017, at NERPO’s 50th National Executive Council meeting, we declared that we would do things differently. The reason is we are now operating in a totally different political, economic and socio-economic environment than when the association was formed 22 years ago. We realised it was time to adapt to these changes.

Our approach now is to shift the focus from advocating for policy reform to implementing the policies we’ve helped shape by driving development of smallholder farmers through a market-driven strategy.

The core change we’re looking into is how we use technology; we need to be agile if we want to survive. Our government is talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but in many instances, our members are still operating according to the principles of the First Industrial Revolution.

Also, from an organisational point of view, running unions or farmers’ organisations the traditional way is not effective. We’re now looking at an ‘e-farmers’ organisation’ that connects people online. Because of the technological advances in communication, we’ll have to have e-conferences and e-meetings. This is also driven by the economic climate. In future, no one will fund conferences and meetings. Institutions that used to support us, such as banks, no longer have the money for this funding, which means we’ll have to think of innovative ways of reducing costs in our day-to-day operations, and in how we share information with our members.

How does NERPO plan to assist farmers to move into this space? Are the farmers you represent ready for the changes that will be brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution?