Out in the streets

This afternoon, whilst I was mid-stream checking updates for the "Forage & pastures" chapter in the next Agri Handbook, the power went off.

Step one in such an event is to go stand outside in the street. If you are the only one out there, then proceed with step 2: check the switchboard on your property. If, on the other hand, the neighbours are also on the street, looking up and down you know it is "load shedding", a euphemism indicating a failure of the country's power agency to keep up with the national electricity demand.

The good news is that we have been assured that the country's power problems will be high on the agenda as the ruling party meet for their bi-annual lekgotla (which means something like "brain-storming session"). The bad news is that the secretary general for the ruling party, after saying that other sources of energy were being looked at, adds: “Why are we slow on shale gas for example?"

No, No. NO!

Why are we so slow in implementing the Renewable Energy Power Producer Procurement Programme -- yes! That is a better question and a very good one. But there is every reason to be slow with shale gas. Scan the Ecowatch newsletters which cover environmental issues in the USA where this technology comes from, the real fears of damage to water resources and occasional earthquakes which just happen to accompany fracking.

You consider Ecowatch fringe or "greenies"? Okay. How about the BBC, a comfortable status quo option, which tonight reports that an "influential committee" are calling for a moratorium on fracking. The Guardian, however, tells us that the UK Prime Minister has rejected this. (Follow the link to read about the debate around what threatens to be a top-down approach that will overrule residents on what happens in their own water catchment areas and below the houses in which they reside).

That's got nothing to do with South Africa? Well, Mr Secretary General, then take a listen to local farm lass Jolynn Minnaar. Her documentary Unearthed has drawn international acclaim. Watch the trailer on Youtube or at www.un-earthed.com.

I hope the lekgotla does indeed look at all the options. Water is a far more immediate need than electricity. I fear that if it turns out wrong there will be lots of people in the streets, and they won't just be looking up and down to ascertain if load shedding is taking place.

Unearthed: farm girl's award-winning international movie

The documentary Unearthed, by local farm girl Jolynn Minnaar near Graaff-Reinet, is drawing international attention. Its topic? Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) ...

Like many who grow up in rural areas or on a farm, Minnaar loved the wide uninhabited space of the Karoo. And when plans were revealed to frack for shale gas, she went to the U.S.A. better to understand the technology. Here she found the consequences of fracking to be rather unlike the promises her rural community had been given.

The production team believe the documentary to be the widest collection of material on fracking available. At the international film festival in Sheffield, England, in June it won the "Green Award". It is voted by many to be the best South African movie this year. Find the trailer on Youtube or at www.un-earthed.com. A shorter documentary by the same team, The Fracking Facade, is essential viewing.

Last week, Minnaar won the 2014 "Woman of the Year: Change Agent" title by Glamour Magazine.