The first evening

A media trip to the Western Cape Part II

A break in the journey: looking over Riviersonderend. Photo used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

At Cape Town airport a contingent of media, WWF SA and Nedbank personnel boarded the three minibuses making up the small convoy that began to thread its way across the beautiful scenery that lies to the east, heading towards the Overberg region. Nedbank is one of the major partners of the work we had come to see. 

We broke the one-and-a-half hour journey, halting at a vantage point to view Riviersonderend where much of the work is being done.  

Back on the buses, we headed for Greyton, a picturesque village that most of us will certainly visit again. At The Post House we were allocated rooms and given an hour to rest before presentations on the WWF work in the Western Cape. 

I returned to the main street and made a sortie to get the feel of the place. Mountains in silent conversation with each other loomed high over street buildings on every side, their words unheard from down below. Around the time that the talks were due to begin, the moon, as if to join the assembly, stepped out to the right of a mountain at the far end of the village, and conversations of cloud passed across its face from the gathering darkness.

“How best can we secure and maintain the ecological infrastructure for food and water security?” is the over-arching question asked by Inge Kotze, senior manager of WWF SA’s involvement in agriculture. Agriculture finds itself very much in the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) questions of the day, and for this reason WWF SA includes agriculture as an area of operation. Indeed, balancing food, land, water and energy security is an important consideration for any strategist looking to ensure a country’s future and prosperity. 

Inge Kotze, senior manager WWF SA agriculture speaking to Nancy Richards, SAfm. Photo used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

To demonstrate how South Africa’s Food, Energy and Water (FEW) questions are intertwined, Kotze shows three consecutive slides mapping (1) key food production areas, (2) regions where coal is mined or energy procured, and (3) major catchment areas supplying water. Point made. The overlap is telling. And so the WWF SA-Nedbank partnership is very active in Mpumalanga, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Nearly 80% of land in the country is deemed agricultural land (for some reason, mining is included under the “agricultural use” label). Whatever the actual figure is, that farmers own most of the landscape is undisputed. For this reason, some view agriculture as a threat to biodiversity. WWF, on the other hand, recognises the “intimate land connection” of the farmer.  By reinforcing a farmer’s natural love of the land, a winning partnership can be created (we will take a look at some examples in the fourth and fifth of this series of articles).

Agriculture has the potential to be at the forefront of the country’s transitioning to a low water, low carbon economy, and WWF SA is helping the sector to make this reality. Numerous sector-specific best practice guidelines are available, and one area the organisation is focusing on is the WWF Living Farms Reference (LFR), an excellent idea as human beings learn more by seeing something demonstrated than by reading about it. It is practical and easier to absorb.

Other key focus areas are:

1. Making and building the business case for the WWF interventions;
2. “On farms” engagement with key sectors through the piloting and implementation of the LFR (wine and fruit, dairy, sugar, barley, grasslands beef);
3. Capacity development and regulatory support (government support, organised agriculture, worker unions, financial sector). 

 

"Food. Water. Energy. For all. Forever." is the WWF SA's logo. Photograph used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA.

“Priority projects” for the next five years are described as:

1. Conservation Agriculture for all commodities and farming systems
2. Restored ecological infrastructure for increased landscape productivity, socio-ecological resilience and soil carbon sequestration
3. Collaborative integrated catchment management for improved water security (quality and quantity) and job creation
4. Energy efficiency and renewable energy case studies to inspire the transition to low-carbon agriculture
5. Climate-proofing the growth of agri-processing in the Western Cape
6. Integrated knowledge system for climate smart agricultural extension.

Sustainable agriculture has been defined by role players like Prof Izak Groenewald at the University of the Free State’s Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Development and Extension simply as agriculture which ticks all the economic, environmental and social/ethical boxes. This is the trajectory on which WWF and its partners like Nedbank would like to see agriculture. The next articles will look at three visits we made on the day following.