From the Editor
Carol Posthumus
Greenhouses are being explored as part of water conservation and to boost food production in many parts of the world.
We are pleased in this edition to bring you many fascinating greenhouse and undercover growing stories. Herbs and citrus grown undercover in the gorgeous and innovative winelands of the Western Cape are included.
We also bring you terrific technical greenhouse articles from our fundi authors like Jerry Austen- and a host of international greenhouse reports. We hope you enjoy exploring the world of greenhouses with us.
Greenhouses can play a role in food security, as is being seen in many urban settings – for example rooftop greenhouses in fascinating urban settings. Experts in the field advocate greenhouse growing in arenas such as hospitals, factories and even petrol stations.
The worrying state of food security in many parts of the world has recently prompted practises such as“ gleaning” and food waste cuisine to take root.
Editor’ s message
Great growing in greenhouses
It is consistently worrying that even in South Africa, where 15 million of our fellow South Africans go to bed hungry every night, onethird of all food production is somehow wasted. If we can remedy food wastage and promote technologies such as greenhouses to grow highly nutritious foods in a concentrated fashion in our world, man( and woman) kind could enter a purple patch! It is heartening that the irrigation sector’ s knowledge is playing a vital role in boosting technologies important to food security such as greenhouses and net houses.
Do yourself a favour and download legendary agricultural engineer Charles Crosby’ s book – 60 Years, of Agricultural Engineering, if you are keen to learn great things about a distinguished 60 year career in agriculture – both in government and private enterprise, local and international. Charles Crosby has made the book freely available for download: see page 40. We extend our congratulations on a wonderful book to Charles Crosby.
A SABI team was thrilled to attend the annual SAGIC Convention in Stellenbosch recently, a gathering of green industry professionals- and we are delighted to report on the SALI( South African Landscape Institute) Awards of Excellence which were held at the event in this edition. A hearty congratulations to all the winners!
8 years of publishing
Congratulations SABI magazine!
It was eight years ago that SABI magazine was established, initially as an A5 publication – with Lourensford farm in the Western Cape depicted on the cover of the August September 2008 edition.
SABI magazine is published by the non-profit organisation SABI( South African Irrigation Institute) to inform, share knowledge and tell the stories of irrigation, water conservation and sustainability in South Africa, covering the agricultural and landscape arenas in South Africa. SABI’ s mission is to share knowledge on optimum irrigation and water conservation: SABI magazine plays an important role in this endeavour. SABI magazine is also distributed to SABI members, who are professionals in the irrigation, water, agricultural and landscape sectors, and are found in the government, academic and private sectors.
5 000 copies are printed with 35 000 readers of the print and digital editions per issue. SABI magazine is published bi-annually, with six editions annually.
In addition to SABI magazine, SABI Training and the bi-annual SABI National Congress are SABI initiatives which further the mission of SABI to spread knowledge about optimum irrigation, sustainability and water conservation to improve socio-economies and environments
We would like to say a huge thank you to all our contributors, readers, advertisers and SABI members for helping us make SABI magazine the success it is!
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SABI | AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2016