Saving Water And Inputs With Variable Rate Irrigation

Cost-effective farming practices and optimal efficiency are both crucial to the survival of South Africa’s sugar cane industry. Faced with dwindling sugar prices and high input costs, RCL Foods is trialling variable rate irrigation on one of their farms, with excellent results. Lindi Botha reports.

Avariable rate irrigation (VRI) system implemented on a centre pivot at one of RCL Foods’ sugar cane farms in Malelane, Mpumalanga, has resulted in greater efficiency and considerable savings. While still in its trial phase, the project is showing promising results, with a 30% reduction in input costs.

Although an established technology in agriculture that delivers proven benefits, VRI is not widely used in South Africa.

Hennie Greyling, cane operations manager at RCL Foods’ sugar and milling division in Malelane, explains that with an increasing focus on saving water and improving the profitability of sugar production, the company decided to explore VRI, as Canadian farmers had had much success with it.

“The technology has never been widely implemented in South Africa because water availability had never really been a problem [for sugar cane growers] until the drought hit us three years ago. We’re now conducting a trial to see how the technology fares under our conditions. So far, we’ve been happy with the results, but we need at least five years of data to make a call. After that, we could end up converting all our pivots to VRI.”

RCL Foods launched the trial last year on an 80ha land fitted with a centre pivot irrigation system.

Since implementation, the company has saved 33% in pumping and fertiliser costs and a further 30% on water usage. Greyling notes that if they continue on this path, the R1 million invested in the technology will pay for itself in three years.

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