Durban - The provincial government and Agriculture and Rural Development department have launched the SMART agriculture project to drive innovation and digitisation in the agriculture sector.
Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, accompanied by Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Bongi Sithole-Moloi, recently launched the SMART Agriculture Project in KwaXimba in the eThekwini Municipality.
Dube-Ncube said the project would see the introduction of drone technology in agriculture to grow and develop the sector in rural areas and townships.
Digitisation would bring job opportunities as young people could train to become drone pilots, she said. The government would roll out programmes to educate young people on how to become drone pilots and data analysts. Sithole-Moloi encouraged communities, especially women, to practise subsistence farming.
Innovators in the agricultural sector Zigi Ziqubu and Siphesihle Sithole, founders of eNgonyameni Partners based in Mnambithi in rural KZN said technology was crucial to farming.
The duo created a machine that assisted them and other farmers in the harvesting of sugar beans which was usually hand-picked and left in heaps for at least three days.
Sithole said the machine allows them to harvest faster and reduce labour.
“Harvesting by hand takes time and our machine has reduced four steps to only two steps.”
He added that this innovation also allows them and other farmers to be able to sow all year round because they now have the time.