Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Precision brings clarity in murky waters
Delivering the right amount of water and nutrients can slash water usage by up to 50%, fertiliser needs by up to 30% and elevates crop procuctivity by 30% to 50%.
Navigating the murky waters of water security demands precision. While pages could be filled discussing the necessary governmental fixes for the water crisis, let’s focus on agricultural water use and what we can do. Let’s remember to protect water security in our continued drive for food security by striving towards increasingly efficient irrigation.
We need efficiency, predictability, productivity, technology, excellence, control, consistency, reliability, peace of mind and success. Luckily there is a solution that is synonymous with all of this. Precision.
Why precision? Because it delivers results. The advantages of precision irrigation are numerous, and the ripple effect of precision irrigation is evident, with farmers often reporting that adopting precision irrigation fosters a broader culture of precision in their practices.
Precision irrigation delivers a clear proposition: Boost yields, save time and money by delivering the correct amount of water and nutrients at the correct time and in the right place with no waste, irrespective of topography or climate. Experience proves it can slash water usage by up to 50%, fertiliser needs by up to 30%, and elevates crop productivity by 30 to 50% with significant improvements in crop quality.
Users of precision irrigation report the ability to irrigate larger areas at the same time, fully utilise available land, and access the plant’s root-zone when needed, despite ground covers. Optimal root-zone management leads to less soil compaction and better root performance, as well as optimal growth in challenging soil. The ability to deliver nutrients through the precision irrigation system allows precise delivery of nutrients to the root zone, prevents fertiliser leaching beyond the root-zone, minimises contamination of soil and groundwater and ensure well-timed nutrient delivery throughout the season.
THE NETAFIM PURPOSE
This brings us to the Netafim purpose, which is to advance life around the world by helping farmers grow more with less. How? By driving the mass adoption of precision irrigation and providing innovative precision irrigation solutions. Why? To fight water, land, and food scarcity. Netafim, an Orbia business, offers a wide range of leading irrigation and complementary solutions across all crops, conditions, and terrains. This includes drippers and driplines, micro and macro sprinklers, valves, filters, water meters, crop management technology (CMT) and ever-developing digital farming solutions.
Our greatest goal is to overcome stumbling blocks. Working in an agricultural environment, implies a host of physical challenges to irrigation and crop production in general. These are challenges such as dripper clogging, root penetration, sloping fields or orchards, poor water quality, low water pressure and more. In our products, technology and smart solutions are used to overcome these challenges. The result is solutions that add value through accurate water and nutrient
delivery, reduced water and electricity usage, a lower labour requirement, less maintenance, and greater durability.
As global leader in precision irrigation, we believe we have a responsibility to ensure that water is used as efficiently as possible in agriculture around the globe. We believe that the drive for mass adoption of precision irrigation must be about much more than the provision of precision irrigation solutions.
We believe success will depend on several factors: products, people, partnerships, and knowledge.
We are therefore called to share knowledge with farmers and all role players in the irrigation and wider agricultural industry. Even the best products will not lead to success if they are not applied, operated, and maintained correctly and if the user is not supported with knowledge.
Our field team is strategically positioned to ensure that our products can be implemented with optimal success through the expertise of our employees in combination with years of accumulated knowledge as the leader in precision irrigation solutions. The Netafim sales team is structured as technical advisers, rather than sales consultants. We sell our products through a widespread retail network, while the agronomy and technical support teams offer unique support in the field. This is to ensure that every end-user of a Netafim product on any farm has access to the expertise to apply our quality products for maximum return on investment.
PRECISION IRRIGATION IS FOR YOU
Some farmers believe that precision irrigation is very complicated and difficult to use. This is not the case, in fact most systems are easy to use and extremely reliable. However, successful precision irrigation must have good irrigation system operation and maintenance. Correct system component selection is also very important, as the correct tools must be selected for every job and quality must be prioritised.
Be sure to consider the necessary specifications to determine which irrigation components are required and can be relied on in your field. It all boils down to what your crop needs.
Precision irrigation equipment selection is about selecting the correct product for the crop and circumstances, selecting a quality product that can do the job at hand in difficult conditions and selecting the product that will offer the best return on investment.
Visit netafim.co.za, or phone
021 987 0477.