The new weather station in Swayimane in Pietermaritzburg will send information to farmers’ cellphones. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane
24 November 2016
A new R180,000 weather station in Swayimane in uMgungundlovu municipality in Pietermaritzburg will help small farmers predict the weather so that they can make decisions about when to plant and plough.
The area is subject to extreme heat and rain.
The weather station is part of the Umngeni Resilience Project implemented last year by the municipality to help farmers and communities, in association with with the UKZN School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.
About 167 farmers from Swayimane are benefitting from the project, selling vegetables to residents of the area and in local vegetable markets.
Project manager Lungi Ndlovu explained that the weather station’s information would be sent to the farmers’ phones. It will also be linked to a website and to a laboratory at Swayimane High School. The system will be operational next year.
Wineth Dlamini, from Etsheni in Swayimane, said she had started with a small vegetable garden and the project had expanded her output.
“We were given seeds and men and women started ploughing. The number of farmers has rapidly increased to 167. We plough and we sell the vegetables.”
Dlamini said she had earned R2,900 from her first crop of maize and R3,500 for her first crop of potatoes, green peppers, beans and beetroot.
“My family does not go to bed without food as it used to. We are grateful,” she said. Dlamini also said she was looking forward to learning how to use the weather station.
Joseph Ncube from Emahlathini said, “As the community that lives in a rural area, we grew up farming. We have now climbed the ladder by having a community garden. We have also created a sort of trust fund. We pay R20 every month in an account. We want to have our own money that will help us grow our farming and be recognised farmers come year 2020.”