DEPT PURCHASES TRUCKS TO STEER EMERGENT FARMER CROP FARMING

The Northern Cape’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform, Environment and Conservation will tomorrow boast the acquisition of two heavy-duty vehicles worth R600 000. The vehicles are to be used in accelerating the province’s 4 000 hectares of water rights programme aimed at empowering emergent farmers through irrigable agricultural projects alongside the Orange River. The two off-road vehicles will be in Kimberley at 14h00 from Pretoria and will be en route again to De Aar where they will be stationed.

The national Department of Agriculture assisted the department’s engineering unit in acquiring the two vehicles amid the unit’s ineffectiveness in the areas of soil surveying, its machinery was declared “outdated.” The two trucks were rebuild by a Pretoria based Truck and Trailer company after being bought from the South African National Defence Force. More work will also now be conducted in the design of sub-surface drainage systems.

The province’s Orange River Emerging-Commercial Farmer Settlement Programme is set to gain momentum next year with hundreds of emerging farmers bound to farm commercially from the programme. The Department will utilize the vehicles in determining the irrigation potential of patches of land in areas such as Sandrift, Kabasas-Abasas, Prieska, Pella and the Karoo Water Project. The soil surveying would primarily be conducted to steam up applications for the licencing of water rights of emerging farmers. The trucks will also be utilized in other areas of work throughout the province.

Enquiries: Thabo Mothibi @ 083 255 8840 / tmothibi@grand.ncape.gov.za