Citrus Academy

The Citrus Academy is a non-profit company that was established by the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa to enable human resource development in the Southern African citrus industry. The Academy is tasked with addressing specific challenges faced by the industry, being low production skills levels, employment equity, scarce and critical skills, black economic empowerment, and the quality of skills delivery.

The Academy was established in 2005, originally as a department of the CGA. At the time, the brief was to support transformation in the citrus industry by promoting and facilitating skills development. Through a process of consultation with various stakeholders and strategic planning, the mission and vision of the Academy was distilled to what it is today. In March 2007, the Citrus Academy was registered as a separate Section 21 company and launched during a glamorous event attended by the who’s who of the citrus industry and the skills development landscape.

The Citrus Academy operates with the support and under the direction of the Citrus Growers’ Association, executing the mandate given to it by the CGA. The Citrus Academy board of directors is made up of four CGA nominees, one donor representative, one service provider representative and one optional seat that can be filled by a skills development expert should the board consider it necessary.

The Citrus Academy receives a monthly service fee from the CGA from which covers its overhead expenditure and funds ongoing activities and services to citrus growers. For all other projects and activities the Academy depends on donor funding. The Citrus Academy has Section 18(a) tax exemption and has 100% beneficiary recognition for the purposes of B-BBEE.