Agriculture input cost pressures mount as fuel price increases further
Fuel is the lifeblood of the agriculture value chain with all processes from farm to fork heavily reliant on its availability at the right time and at an affordable price.
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Chillies: a hot crop if you know what you’re doing
Diversifying with chillies has enabled Klein Karoo stone fruit farmer JD van Deventer to increase cash flow, use orchard space more efficiently, and mitigate the climate- and market-related risks associated with fruit production. He spoke to Glenneis Kriel.
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Freshwater Is Disappearing. Can Technology Save Us?
Global climate change and the exponential increase in population has led to water scarcity and recent headline-grabbing water shortages in major urban centers like Capetown and Sao Paulo.
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Irrigated wheat: Conservation farming improves water usage and yield
South Africa’s water scarcity and the necessity to import well over one million tons of wheat annually mean that the country’s winter wheat growers increasingly have to optimise their water-use efficiencies. KwaZulu-Natal farmer Egon Zunckel spoke to Lloyd Phillips about his family’s own efforts to achieve higher wheat yield from less water.
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SA’s first aquaponics social enterprise to promote climate-smart food production
Global humanitarian development organisation, Inmed Partnerships for Children, has launched its first Inmed Aquaponics Social Enterprise (Inmed ASE) in Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng.
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Copious rain with too little storage means too little future gain- South Africa
A crippling backlog in infrastructure development and a lack of progress in building new dams and water catchment areas will negate this soon.
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‘Go after what you want’ – lessons from a young spinach farmer
Gauteng-based Gugulethu Mahlangu says volunteering for experienced vegetable farmers gave her the confidence to launch her own successful career in farming.
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Half the World to Face Severe Water Stress by 2030
The report, entitled Policy Options for Decoupling Economic Growth from Water Use and Water Pollution, finds that as the global population rises, increased urbanization, climate change and a shift in how food is consumed are likely to dramatically increase future demand for water. Under current trends, demand for water will exceed supply by 40 per cent in…
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SA agribusiness confidence shoots to six-year high
The latest results from the quarterly Agribusiness Confidence Index are a reflection of the general sense of optimism in the farming sector following a year of favourable production conditions for grain producers in the summer and winter rainfall regions.
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Building vineyard biodiversity to combat climate emergency
“Climate change is such a big issue, more extreme events are happening more regularly,” says Stuart Proud, viticulturalist and winemaker at Thousand Candles Winery, in Australia’s Yarra Valley. “After the recent summer of bushfires in Australia, I hope people realise how bad things could get.”
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