South African farmers are often lauded for their skill at producing so much food and fibre from this water-deprived piece of the planet. Because I’m a farmer I love these compliments, but I often wonder… do we deserve them?
READ:How technology can help the fresh produce sector
Take precision agriculture (PA), for example. It’s also known as ‘site-specific crop management’ and other fancy names, but it’s simply the process of putting the right thing in the right amount in the right place at the right time. This is something so central to well-managed farming that it’s taken for granted that any farmer would be doing his damndest to get this right.
With leaf and soil analysis techniques having been widely adopted for many years, farmers can readily select the ‘right thing’ – for example, the type of fertiliser – and the ‘right time’ of application. But despite knowing that there are minor (or even major) soil variations on a land or orchard, many farmers distribute the fertiliser evenly over the entire land.
And now, with GPS, drones, sophisticated cameras, yield mapping and variable rate fertilising, a farmer can select the ‘right place’ with absolute precision. As Annelie Coleman reported (FW, 12 June, 2013), large numbers of Australian farmers are using this technology to implement PA.
But what has happened in South Africa? Despite success stories such as Locklore Farming in Schweizer-Reneke, where precision farming took maize yield from 2,98t/ ha in 2000 to 7t/ha in 2007, PA doesn’t seem to have caught on in this country.
A simple device
It’s not only PA that’s been slow to get farmers’ attention in South Africa. I have written before about the power of the humble plate-meter. This simple device clearly demonstrates that accurate and repeated measurement of pastures enables a properly planned grazing regime to be applied. When this is done, the production and cost reduction benefits are huge. The plate meter has been around since the late 1970s, much longer than PA, but it too has not taken hold in South Africa. I wonder why?
Power and load
Then there are the power factor (PF) and load factor (LF), which I’ve also discussed before. Electricity costs have gone through the roof. Yet if you mention PF or LF, chances are that you will get a blank look. Measuring these factors indicates the efficiency with which you are using electricity. PFs measure how well an electric motor turns electricity into work. An inefficient electric motor is easily fixed.
LF is a measure of how well you are managing your use of peak demand. It’s the simplest of calculations, and by driving the LF up, your electricity cost will come down. Farming is a high-risk, low-return business. In today’s competitive world, it’s only those who embrace and adopt new technology who will survive.
This article was originally published in the 27 February 2015 issue of Farmer’s Weekly.
