REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE IN PRACTICE AT MPONENG

Appearances can be both deceptive and misleading - as it is in the case of Mponeng. To the public eye, Mponeng is simply a large shaded ‘greenhouse’ next to the Mponeng Waste Water Treatment Plant at Harmony Gold Mine in Carletonville. From an agriculturalist’s viewpoint, it is a many-faceted farming challenge that requires innovative but scientifically responsible solutions. Bringing the 8000 very young fruit and nut trees on site into the food production value chain, it demands practical and theoretical knowledge of agricultural science and effective modern farming practices. Innovations at this site have been introduced with the end aim of developing sector knowledge for use in the training of developing and entrepreneurial farmers to improve their farming practices and the utilisation of agricultural products for profit.

As a lifelong student of agriculture, I am familiar with the concept of syntropic agroforestry, as implemented in Australia, to replicate and accelerate the beneficial natural ecological processes in tree farming. This system has merits but wasn’t a perfect fit for Mponeng’s irrigated container-based orchard, which is planted in ‘medium’ rather than in the open ground. It was in pursuit of information-sharing about the latest trends in South African agriculture that I attended the Landbou Weekblad’s Herlewingsboerdery workshop in Ottosdal on 16 April 2024. The workshop reinforced aspects of my general farming knowledge, but it also provided the opportunity to bring my own practice related to regenerative agriculture at Mponeng to the attention of academics, risk managers, agriculturalists and commercial farmers. In so doing, I discovered that various of the innovations introduced at Mponeng are cutting edge in this field.

The original intention when we planted approx. 2000 chilli seeds on site in December 2023 was to exercise foresight to improve the internal environment of the site and provide better natural and complementary protection to the vulnerable fig, pomegranate, mulberry and pecan trees. Many of these trees from the Cape had battled to adapt to the alien climate and conditions at Mponeng. They were expected to bear their first fruit harvest but needed protection because they were likely to be further set back by the continuing El Nino heatwave during early 2024. As the chilli seedlings reached the size to be transplanted, many of them were transferred into the same planters as the fruit trees. As is the practice with co-planting in gardens with complementary planting, other plants were moved closer to the trees so that the hormones they released could benefit the trees and make them stronger. These included green bean bushes and tomato plants that would flower and attract insect pests away from the fruit trees. These plants also had other purposes.

Plants gain nutrients to make them grow via interaction with their growing medium through their micro-root systems. The introduction of a second monocot plant’s root system naturally increases rhizome interaction in the growth medium and increases micro-biological activity that aids in the transfer of nutrients from the soil and into the nutrient processing structures within each plant. This promotes growth, fruit production and foliage growth that the young fruit trees need to protect them from the elements. In the longer term, the chilli bushes will also protect the trees from the type of harsh cold winds and temperatures that had a negative impact on their growth cycle during the winter of 2023. Once they have died, the plants will be cut off at ground level and join the compost pile, where red wriggler worms have been introduced to promote organic breakdown and compost enrichment. The chilli roots left in the containers will contribute carbon to the planting medium and act as a platform for further microbiological activity. If bean plants’ roots are left in the medium, they will contribute nitrogen to it as a natural source of fertilizer to supplement that which we supply to the planting medium.

The chilli plants we have planted have helped to control weed growth and promote the growth of monocot grasses, thus cutting weed control costs and freeing our workers to harvest some of the fruits of the trees and their companion plants. Sale of surplus seedlings and produce from the co-crops can bring income to reduce the site’s running costs. This concept has been proved by selling plants and chillies to Bekker High School’s Agricultural Hub for processing and educational purposes.

The Hub is a natural partner for Mponeng in that both have wastewater processing plants and both have a focus on our ultimate goal of training young people and community members in food production as well as in how to participate in the subsequent commercial value chain. Nedbank’s Proud of My Town project (PoMT) has funded the purchase of Mponeng seedlings for two of the Hub’s greenhouses that PoMT has had renovated for food production and training purposes at Bekker High School. The training that PoMT sponsors at the school is not purely for agricultural students at the school because the flowering vegetable plants are intended to introduce young entrepreneurs to the stages of growth of food produce that they can market in its original or processed forms.

Access to Mponeng itself is necessarily limited by the mine’s security arrangements, whereas the Bekker Hub has a conference centre and guesthouse that serve the West Rand within a 50km radius of the school. This can promote access to training in the innovative co-crop planting concept essential to regenerative agriculture, as well as to training in the profitable use of agriculturally produced food products. On various occasions, we have processed figs, pomegranates and chillis into saleable artisanal products such as preserves and rusks for introduction to the project’s principals in illustration of how these can be produced by community members and utilised in the food value chain. Most recently we introduced a senior official from Harmony to chilli sauce made from the project’s chillies. The boerewors was also made by members of a Magaliesburg church community. Naturally the official wanted to take this entrepreneurial concept into his own circles of influence and was able to remove about 80kg of chillies from the site, leaving plenty for other uses.

At Mponeng we are producing food for future sale and consumption at the same time as developing a regenerative cultivation system that is uniquely South African but probably has applications internationally. No passerby will be able to detect the considerable progress that we are making in container-based food production under Maropeng’s huge white roof, but young farmers will be able to see and experience it first-hand. Seeing is believing, they say!