WESTERN CAPE Overview Western Cape agricultural character What crops do we produce? The wheat story Measuring, modelling & monitoring productivity Biofuels vs food Sustainability issues CapeFarmMapper Winter Rainfall Western Cape Land Use Western Cape Dryland vs Irrigated It is unlikely that any mainstream biofuel will be feasibly produced under irrigation, so this discussion is mainly based on dryland production. The main dryland crop in the Western Cape is wheat, mostly grown in various rotation systems. Dryland Yield Potential Previous wheat areas (pre-1990s) Seasonal Rainfall > 300mm Climate trends study Temperature increasing Windrun decreasing Evaporation decreasing (A-Pan) Rainfall no clear trends Study on Observed Climate ChangeTrends Temperature trends Tmax Tmin We have a history of variability. 1825-1829 predominance of reports of drought and desiccation 1830-1833 flood and good rain reports predominated 1834-1843 drought reports predominate 1844-1848 wetter years 18491851 drought reports predominate 1852-1860 wetter years, particularly in the eastern parts 1872-1878 drought reports predominant 1881-1885 predominance of dry conditions
This variability in the WCape is likely to continue!! Our climate differs vastly from the rest of SA & thus our biofuels strategy will also differ vastly! We have a generally low rainfall. And mostly unfavourable soils Our dryland production zones Crop modelling Analyses all the parameters of soil, rainfall, temperature, radiation, and crop together to determine crop growth & yield at a daily time step Can change input parameters to test multiple scenarios Crop modelling & Vulnerability analysis Future daily climate Scenarios (8GCMs) Observed daily climate HFA Data Wheat Homogeneous Zones Climate change scenarios Source downscaled data Downscaled daily data (9 GCMs) (C02 levels 2046 2065) Reformat to APSIM Test Primary Impacts Yield/growing season Climate data Crop model Soil data GCM Data (Select emissions scenario) Spatial Where? Systems? How much? How is it performing? Climate Daily observed climate (clean!) Soils Highly detailed representative soil/s per zone Western Cape What crops do we produce? Where are they produced?
We recently undertook a detailed crop census Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 20 Limitations of ground survey Time-consuming & intensive
Limited to (public) road access
Huge areas inaccessible from roads 21 22 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 23 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 24 25 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 26 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 27 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 28 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 29 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 30 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 31 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 32 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 33 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 34 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 35 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 36 37 38 39 40 Land use mapping in the old days 41 42 Land use mapping now 43 44 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 45 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 46 Main crops grown in the Western Cape Top crops by area Rank Top Commodities Area (Ha) 1 Lucerne 398 819,6 2 Wheat 312 476,1 3 Planted Pastures Perennial 237 407,1 4 Small Grain Grazing 190 324,6 5 Natural grazing 109 095,1 6 Wine Grapes 108 040,9 7 Fallow 89 129,0 8 Canola 71 864,5 9 Barley 70 237,8 10 Planted Pastures 52 630,5 11 Lupine 38 468,1 12 Rooibos 35 978,1 13 Weeds 32 735,0 14 Apples 21 030,2 15 Table Grapes 12 683,5 16 Pears 11 086,3 17 Stubble 9 745,2 18 Triticale 9 289,6 19 Peaches 7 783,8 20 Oranges 7 621,4 21 Potatoes 6 705,1 22 Olives 6 164,0 23 Plums 5 762,6 24 Onions 4 719,1 25 Oats 4 210,3 Crops by estimated value per local municipality But agriculture is dynamic changes continually Can use satellite imagery to monitor annual or in-season changes
Coarser scale satellite imagery usually available for free
Allows us to monitor crop & veld condition and changes 50 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 51 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 52 Dryland wheat rotation crops in the Western Cape Wheat Barley Lucerne/Medics/Clover Lupins Canola
Wheat is proving to be most profitable when grown in a rotation system with minimum tillage to increase soil carbon Fieldwork - calibration of spatial models & satellite imagery 54 Harvesting trials yield data
Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 55 The concept of NDVI One of various vegetation indices used to assess plant growth, vigour and biomass from multispectral satellite imagery Vegetation:
Pigment in Plant Leaves (Chlorophyll) strongly absorbs visible light (0.4 to 0.7 m)
Cell Structure however strongly reflects Near-IR (0.7 1.1 m)
Thanks to Robin Weeks (courtesy http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov) NDVI MODIS NDVI - derived dryland production mapping 59 Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 60 Fieldwork - calibration of our NDVI drought maps Satellite Image for NDVI Summer Satellite image for NDVI Winter The concept of NDVI (cont.) NDVI images are processed for every 10 or 16 days using Maximum Value Compositing to minimise atmospheric effects In-season monitoring using pixel values of NDVI Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 76 Current season (2012) vs 12 year mean at Langgewens In-season monitoring Africa Geospatial Forum 2013 Cape Town 77 2003 drought season vs 12 year mean at Eendekuil SA & Western Cape dryland wheat production The impact of deregulation, circa 1996:
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 500 700 900 1100 1300 1500 1700 1900 2100 2300 T h o u s a n d
t o n
T h o u s a n d
h a
South Africa wheat area planted South Africa wheat production Linear (South Africa wheat production) Wheat production (t/ha) and area 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 D U I S E N D
H A / T H O U S A N D
H A
JARE/YEARS TOTALE OPPERVLAKTE ONDER KORING/TOTAL AREA PLANTED TO WHEAT 0.0 500.0 1000.0 1500.0 2000.0 2500.0 3000.0 T h o u s a n d
t o n s
Production Year Production of wheat in South Africa Noordwes/North West Gauteng Limpopo Mpumalanga Kwazulu-Natal Vrystaat/Free State Oos-Kaap/E. Cape Noord-Kaap/N. Cape Wes-Kaap/W. Cape 0.0 500.0 1000.0 1500.0 2000.0 2500.0 3000.0 0.0 200.0 400.0 600.0 800.0 1000.0 1200.0 1400.0 1600.0 T o n
D u i s e n d
H e k t a r e
KORING: OPPERVLAKTE, PRODUKSIE EN INVOERE Oppervlakte (ha) Produksie (ton) Invoere (ton) 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 T / H A
JARE / YEARS TOTALE GEMIDDELDE OPBRENGS VAN KORING / TOTAL AVERAGE YIELD OF WHEAT 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11* %
D u i s e n d
t o n
Wheat: Percentage imports of RSA consumption Invoere / Imports % invoere t.o.v RSA verbruik/ % imported of RSA consumption So many old wheat fields were abandoned. Marginal land Land owners select land use according to optimal returns Marginal land will remain as such unless energy crops can be produced at a lower real cost on marginal land than on productive land subsidies? Wheat unpopular transport differential imposed on WCape wheat farmers Barley uncertain market Canola limited market, some potential Triticale an alternative to wheat, fair potential
Spatial feasibility modelling Spatial feasibility modelling (cont) Marginal land - soils & sustainability Western cape soils generally shallow and nutritionally poor (low organic C) Conservation agriculture essential for sustainability judiciously applied can ameliorate soils Biofuels must not mine soils so residues should be retaineda hidden cost of 2 nd gen biofuels? Current thinking on biofuel options for the Western Cape Triticale bio-ethanol Canola biodiesel
Straw/residues should be retained in soil Rotate grain/oilseed with legume for soil amelioration and animal fodder component Trials to be implemented from 2015 to test the performance of biofuels in the rotation Economics??
Biofuels vs food debate as it may apply to the Western Cape Much more wheat/food could be produced in the Western Capebut cheaper to import than to farm marginal land. (We are food secure as a result of favourable balance of payments. So far)
Yet the Western Cape is now the main wheat producing region in SA
Perhaps the argument should be that by sustainable production of biofuels we can ensure that the land resource retains (and even improves) its latent capacity to revert to food production if ever necessary
With government support biofuels may improve rural economy/jobs Biofuels vs food debate as it may apply to the Western Cape (cont)
Conclusion We have looked at: What we have currently in terms of agricultural crops How we measure and monitor our crops The tenuous resources (climate and soil) which support our dryland cropping, and climatic trends The decline in wheat area and resulting (so-called) marginal land Some possible biofuels development pathways in the dryland (wheat, etc.) rotation context
Cape Farm Mapper Agricultural Spatial Information Viewer
Farm finder/SG Code finder Overlays climate etc. Will soon include 2013 crop survey Basic mapping/area calculation Integrated data per farm portion Import/Export www.elsenburg.com/gis/apps/cfm 95 96