Water harvesting: A key to food security for Africa?

Abstract

WATER HARVESTING A team of Free State researchers believe they have found an affordable and effective tool to significantly increase food production in Africa. With the water harvesting technique they have enhanced, the productive potential of millions of the continent’s semi-arid hectares can be unlocked. Marleen Smith reports. One may just as well describe it as a wage which is sweeping across the former homeland villages of Thaba Nchu, east of Bloemfontein. A water harvesting technique being developed by a team of researchers from nearby Glen is making productive again village land which has been lying fallow for ages. Probably the most talked about part of this revolution is how it provides food and income where there was either none or too little before. Best of all is that it costs very little apart from manual labour in an area where jobs and wage money are almost as scarce as food. Researcher Cobus Botha says the evident success of the technique is selling it fast among villagers.

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