US president-elect Donald Trump dismisses climate change — a stance farmers can ill afford to emulate. It makes sense for them to adopt sustainable farming practices, for the environment and their bottom line.
Global climate change has had different climatic effects on regions around the world. But let’s look closer to home.
SA’s recent drought — the worst in 55 years, with water restrictions in tow — is ample reason for adopting practices that are water efficient and environmentally sustainable. The Western Cape, for example, can expect extremely high temperature and significant changes in rainfall and seasonal cycles.
That said, why should farmers take on the perceived burden of adopting sustainable farming practices, given all the challenges they’re already shouldering? What’s in it for them?
Those challenges are the biggest drivers for adopting green technologies and practices in South African agriculture — rising input costs, limited natural resources (particularly arable land and water), and increasing consumer demand for more sustainable products.
Adopting climate smart technology and practices will not only mitigate these challenges and yield financial gain for compliant farmers (especially in the long run), it will also drive food security. For example, a Cape Flats peri-urban farming project in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) provides much-needed food security and 4,000 jobs. It’s here that commercial and smallholder farmers produce more than 50 horticultural crops. Such projects need to be protected against the effects of climate change through sustainable farming practices.
But what about the economics — how will the adoption of sustainable farming practices improve the farmers’ bottom line?
Agriculture relies heavily on effective risk management that spans economic, environmental and social sustainability. And sustainable farming practices – while sometimes requiring capital investments – can save farmers money in input costs (like water, energy and fertilizer), and lead to healthier soil.
With mounting uncertainty about water supply and rising production costs, the case for sustainable farming practices is strengthened, and it offers real economic and environmental returns for farmers. So it’s a no brainer that green technology and sustainable agricultural practices point towards sustainable returns for farmers – both economically and environmentally.
But for our farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices, we need robust support structures in place, especially from government.
The government and industry associations have indeed provided support to farmers to help them farm sustainably – starting in the Western Cape, and hoping to branch out to the rest of the country. This support comes in the form of initiatives such as SmartAgri, the Greenagri portal, GreenCape’s sector desk, FruitLook, and other interventions focused on community-based adaptation, and disaster risk reduction and management.
The Western Cape departments of agriculture department and environmental affairs and development planning launched SmartAgri in 2014 to provide a practical, relevant climate change response plan tailored to the Western Cape agricultural sector. This is particularly useful, given that in the Western Cape climate change projections suggest a warming of 1.5°C to 3°C by about 2050. This will translate into more hot days and increased evaporation.
GreenAgri is a web-based information portal focused on driving the green economy. Funded by Western Cape’s government, but available and targeted for the whole of SA, it hosts SmartAgri publications, along with a great deal more information on policies, and tips and tools that are freely available. The portal was launched in September 2015 as a result of a collaboration between the Western Cape agriculture department and GreenCape (a not-for-profit sector development agency established by the Western Cape government).
GreenAgri aims to serve as a one-stop shop for farmers, researchers and agencies (private and nongovernment) interested in climate-smart agricultural practices and the green economy. Stakeholders have been working together to provide substantive information to users of the portal – and interest is growing.
And this formidable collaboration has resulted in GreenCape setting up an agriculture sector desk, which publishes a yearly agriculture market intelligence report for investors, highlighting opportunities for green technologies and practices that increase production efficiency while simultaneously benefiting the environment and increasing resilience.
However, a key motivator to drive change is real examples of success stories, and it’s no different in the case of South African farmers.
This brings to mind FruitLook. Because farmers now have to produce more with less water, the Western Cape agriculture department developed FruitLook. This state-of-the-art online tool equips fruit and grape farmers in the Western Cape to improve their water use efficiency, using satellite technology. This service is currently free of charge for farmers who reside in the region covered by the satellite.
Other interventions include renewable energy sources — wind, solar and hydropower and biomass — which have a replenishing nature, and can lower the carbon intensity of agriculture and agricultural products. They can also enable farms and agribusinesses to produce electricity for self-consumption, though a feasibility study or an energy audit is required to identify the applicable rate/ tariff for a farming business, and what type of energy system(s) is most suitable. The use of digital meters is recommended for their accuracy, to articulate the existing energy consumption and to identify areas of energy wastage.
Then there’s the Confronting Climate Change (CCC) project, a strategic industry initiative that aims to support SA’s agricultural sector to effectively respond to the challenges and opportunities relating to climate change. The project, which focuses on the fruit and wine sector — with hopes to expand to the grain industry — provides a freely available carbon footprint calculator to accurately measure energy use and carbon emission intensity.
The carbon footprint of citrus production, packaging and storage in SA has been measured by the CCC project. And the main drivers, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, have been identified as electricity usage (especially for irrigation pumping, packhouse operations and cold storage), the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers, diesel usage, and packaging.
So, what proactive steps can our citrus farmers take to respond effectively to existing climate risks and projected climatic changes? Well, the ones that will go a long way to sustained mitigation include improved management of water resources; installation of shade netting over orchards; pro-active risk management against natural hazards, and pest and disease outbreaks; increased on-farm use of renewable energy; as well as the efficient use of energy.
Our farmers, who essentially feed the nation, are largely at the mercy of the elements. They can, therefore, ill afford to aggravate the effects of those elements through agricultural practices that perpetuate climate change. We hope to see more farmers grab the ‘lifeline’ of support, as they reap the benefits of sustainable farming.
• Hardman is Citrus Growers’ Association industry affairs manager
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