Aerial view showing the dairy and cow handling facility in the background (green roof), and sludge and wash water ponds in the foreground.
Milking water-wise
opportunities
The Wittekleibosch dairy is an inspiring example of what can be
achieved by positive government intervention and sound collaboration
with the private sector.
By Kim Kemp
T
he Wittekleibosch Dairy Trust’s
new milking facility in the
Tsitsikamma region of the Eastern
Cape is not just a milestone land
restitution project; it is also applying
some ‘water-wise’ thinking that will
save 30 000 litres of water a day.
The Wittekleibosch Development
Trust represents 152 families from the
AmaMfengu tribe who were forcibly
10
removed from the area between 1977
and 1978.
Following the fall of apartheid, the
land was returned to the families in
terms of the Land Claims Restitution
Act. Now, with funding from the
province’s Department of Rural
Development and Agrarian Reform
(DRDAR), the Trust is joint-venturing
with commercial partner Johan du
Water Sewage & Effluent November/December 2017
Plessis to construct and run this R30-
million rotary dairy.
The new 66-point rotary milking
platform, capable of milking 1 200
cows twice a day, has come not a
moment too soon to replace the
Trust’s one ageing milking parlour.
With a combined capacity for just 600
cows, these facilities were no longer
keeping up with demand. Once the