The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Naledi Pandor will officially launch the Tjheseho Community Learning Centre's Agricultural Skills Hub at Petsana on Saturday. The department's Lunga Ngqengelele, says this comes after a memorandum of understanding with the VKB agricultural company was signed to establish the hub. It will be offering training opportunities in close to a thousand skills. He says short skills programmes and bursaries will be made available through various Sector Education and Training Authorities and public Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges.  He says land and infrastructure have been made available for the construction of the hub by the Nketoane Municipality.

Weekly producer deliveries of maize have slowed in recent weeks, as a large share of the 2017/18 maize crop has already been delivered to commercial silos. At the end of last week, maize producer deliveries amounted to more than 33 000 tons, well below the previous week’s volume. The Agricultural Business Chamber's,  Wandile Sihlobo, says this placed South Africa’s maize producer deliveries at 11.2 million tons, which equates to 87% of the 12.9 million ton harvested for the 2017/18 production season. He says yields were quite good in most areas, varying between average and above average.

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The South African Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, will be commemorating World Food Day next Wednesday in Brandwacht in the Western Cape. The day is celebrated annually on October 16 by 150 countries across the word, in support of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's mission to create public awareness of the world food shortage. It also serves to strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. United Nations (UN) Chief, Antó Guterres, marking World Food Day on Tuesday, said one person in nine does not have enough to eat with some 155 million children under the age of five who are chronically malnourished.

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