This past season, two Elgin packhouses - Fruitways and Kromco - have assisted growers by providing two generators to the Groenland Water User Association (GWUA). Commercial fruit production in the Elgin Valley relies on irrigation. Much of the water is supplied from the Eikenhof Dam through a network of about of pipes. “It’s the lifeblood of the valley,” says GWUA chair Richard Moss.
The Eikenhof Dam lies just above Grabouw on the Palmiet River; it is managed by GWUA, while the pipe system falls under Subdistrict 1. Five pump stations help move water around the valley.
“The system is designed to deliver water 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Moss. “We need to pump flat out just to give everybody their normal water allocation during non-loadshedding. If we lose time during loadshedding, we can never catch up.”
As packhouses, Fruitways and Kromco were able to spare the generators because the peak fruit-packing season only comes after the peak irrigation season. They charged GWUA nothing for using the generators.
“We were very happy to help out,” says Hein Keulder, CEO of the Fruitways Group, adding that the pack houses depend on the growers for fruit. “When good rains fell in late summer, the irrigation demands dropped, and we could move the generator back to our Valley pack house just in time for our peak packing weeks.”
Source: hortgro.co.za