Setting Setting the SCENE

by Douglas Chitepo

Agriculture is welcoming A BRAND-NEW YEAR

FFirstly, well wishes to all our agricultural stakeholders for your resilience, commitment and dedication over the years and in doing so, ensuring a sustained agricultural sector against all odds, i.e. climate change patterns, the Russia/Ukraine war, changing national and international political dynamics and our continued energy crisis, to name a few, which undoubtedly directly impact on the sector, yet AGRICULTURE stood firm and came forward with innovative strategies and continues to review its operational processes to mitigate such adversities in the best interest of the sector

The year 2023 will most definitely bring its own challenges to which the Department will respond in line with its provincial mandate to effectively address the agriculture sector needs, strengthen the commodity approach through its partnerships with industry role-players, amongst others, whilst the Department will embrace a “citizen-centric approach” to ensure service delivery needs are adequately and timeously responded to

The Western Cape Government (WCG) has embarked on a “culture journey” process, which the Department is fully committed to and therefore the Head of Department is calling on all Programmes to institutionalise this journey of introspection and reflection, both from a personal and organisational perspective, in order to get a sense or feel as to how staff and citizens respectively experience the organisational environment and government services embedded in the WCG values of Caring, Competence, Accountability, Integrity, Innovation and Responsiveness

Lastly, some profound words from the belated American poet Maya Angelou: “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency, we can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

#ForTheLoveOfAgriculture

Douglas Chitepo

PUBLISHING TEAM

Publisher: Erika Alberts

Layout & design: Carmen le Roux

Copy editor: Aletta Pretorius-Thiart

Financial director: Pat Botha media@mlpmedia.co.za

We created an artificial intelligence (AI) magazine cover using stable diffusion. This involved using machine learning algorithms to generate a visually stunning and unique design that effectively communicates the themes and ideas of the magazine.

The idea was to harness the power of artificial intelligence to generate a design that was both aesthetically pleasing and aligned with the magazine’s content. This allowed for the creation of a complex and intricate design that would be difficult to achieve using traditional design methods.

The process involved inputting an initial image into a machine learning algorithm, which then modified the image to create a unique design. The algorithm was trained on a large dataset of images related to the themes of the magazine. This allowed it to generate designs that were tailored to the magazine’s content.

EDITOR

Mary James (021 808 5008)

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Ilse Trautmann (021 808 5012)

SECRETARIAT

Gizelle van Wyk (021 808 5022)

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Arie van Ravenswaay (021 808 5085)

Ashia Petersen

Juan de Lora (021 808 5383)

Daniel Johnson (021 483 3261)

John Constable (021 808 7763)

Dr Lesley van Helden (021 808 5017)

Maritjie Cornelissen (021 808 5497)

Riaan Nowers (021 808 5194)

Vusumzi Zwelendaba (021 808 5226)