The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) this week held its annual general Meeting in Windhoek. Delegates and observers from national farmers’ organizations from nine countries in the Southern African region including Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Madagascar, Tanzania, Seychelles, Botswana and Namibia attended the meeting. The Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) hosted the meeting.

Commenting on Economic Partnership Agreements, SACAU said in a statement that governments and negotiators must ensure that they also address sub-sector specific rules of origin, possibly through simplified derogation provisions and cumulating provisions. Further, SACAU said it would encourage regional integration through lobbying for reduced trade barriers amongst its members. It was want to play a coordinating role with other sub regional Farmers’ Organizations to work towards having an African position on the rules of origin as imposed by the European Union The SACAU members acknowledged that Bio-fuels gives opportunity for farmers to diversify their production, get access to new markets, increase their productivity, increase their income and increase their share in the Bio-fuel value chain. Bio-fuels also give an opportunity for the subsistence farmers to transform into commercial farming.
SACAU urged governments in Southern Africa to speed up the implementation of the AU/NEPAD Comprehensive African Development Programme (CAADP) agenda and to live up to their commitments in the Maputo Declaration by significantly increasing their share of national budgets to at least 10 %, align their agricultural development efforts with CAADP, and create a policy environment that enables at least 6% annual growth in the agricultural sector.
The meeting also elected board members of SACAU with Ajay Vashee from Zambia elected president. Dough Taylor-Freeme from Zimbabwe was elected first vice president while Fanny Makina from Malawi was elected second vice president.
Louri Bosman from South Africa and Raimar von Hase from Namibia were elected as board members.