Cellphones telling African farmers when to irrigate their crops could help them boost production and save water, South African sugar growers say, as a pilot project helps small emerging farmers.
Small-scale black farmers around Pongola, a few miles south of South Africa's border with Swaziland, receive one text message a week telling them whether they should irrigate their sugar crops that week.
Over-irrigating sugar crops can reduce the yield, as well as wasting water - a fragile resource in southern Africa.
The pilot project has been set up by the South African Sugar Association (SASA), an umbrella group covering both small and large commercial growers as well as millers.
Rainfall data from an existing weather station in Pongola is sent to a powerful computer system at SASA's Mount Edgecombe headquarters outside Durban, which models how much more water the crops need. Mthembu then gets a simple automatic text message in Zulu telling him whether to irrigate or not.
"The computer programme itself is not a new concept," said SASA researcher Abraham Singles. "But we think this is the first time we have been able to give farm specific advice. A lot of these guys have only had cellphones for the last couple of years."
Helping emerging black farmers is seen as key to the development of South African agriculture. The government wants 30 percent of commercial farmland in black hands by 2014 and is on the lookout for ways to help new farmers boost outputs.
The South African sugar industry says it hopes to expand the Pongola pilot - which currently reaches only 25 small farms - to include more both small and large commercial growers. It might also be expanded to other crops such as maize, fruit or cotton.
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