The cost of growing food in South Africa has never been higher, and the pressure is only increasing. Since 2007, electricity tariffs have increased by 971%. For farmers who rely on energy-intensive processes like irrigation and cold storage, this rise in cost has placed long-term pressure on operating margins. At the same time, grid instability continues to affect operations. Even in the absence of formal load-shedding, ageing infrastructure and inconsistent supply force many farms to invest in backup systems just to maintain daily schedules.

Climate Uncertainty Adds Another Layer of Complexity

Southern Africa has endured a sequence of increasingly intense droughts. For example, the 2023–2024 El Niño‑driven drought triggered widespread crop failure, leaving over 27 million people in the area facing hunger. In Zimbabwe alone, the 2024 corn crop fell by around 70%, and more than 9,000 cattle died as the drought intensified.

These challenges are not new, and they are not going away. What has changed is the urgency with which they need to be addressed. For farmers, managing risk has become part of daily operations. But long-term resilience cannot rest on individual effort alone. It requires infrastructure that supports food production at scale. And that starts with policy.

Policy Alone Won’t Feed a Nation

In South Africa, food security is a national priority embedded in law. Section 27 of the Constitution sets a clear expectation: everyone has the right to sufficient food and water. The National Food and Nutrition Security Plan supports this by outlining practical priorities, including water-smart irrigation, climate-smart farming, and efficient use of natural resources.

The National Development Plan 2030 builds on this by identifying agriculture as a key part of rural development and economic growth. It calls for infrastructure that supports sustainable land use and improves access to essential resources with energy, water, and productive land being key.

These policies make it clear that food security cannot be separated from infrastructure.

South Africa has the right frameworks in place. All our policies recognise that sustainable food production depends on infrastructure that works and that holds up when conditions are difficult.

But policies only become meaningful when they translate into systems that function on the ground. That’s where the opportunity lies: not just to meet compliance requirements, but to build solutions that safeguard resources and deliver measurable value.

A Field-Tested Blueprint for Climate-Ready Farming

On a large commercial farm in the Western Cape, a solar-powered irrigation system was implemented to operate entirely off-grid. Built for long-term reliability and resilience, the system is designed to operate entirely off-grid, with no inverters and no batteries. This translates national food and energy policy into practical, on-the-ground results.

At the centre of the project is a 15 million litre dam, built to store water pumped from a nearby river. This enables a two-part operating model. During the day, solar-powered pumps draw water from the river to fill the dam and irrigate the fields at the same time. At night, the farm switches to gravity-fed irrigation, using the dam’s elevation to supply water without any additional energy input. The result is continuous, 24-hour irrigation with no reliance on backup power.

To meet the farm’s seasonal water demand, the system includes:

  • 24 solar-powered pumps, split between 12 primary river pumps (75 kW each) and 12 secondary booster pumps (110 kW each)
  • A 3.2 MW solar PV installation, feeding energy directly into the pumping network
  • DC combiner panels with integrated string-level monitoring for performance optimisation
  • Custom-built pump panels fitted with Variable Speed Drives to match flow rate and pressure requirements
  • A remote SCADA platform, giving full visibility into system performance, water levels, and energy use
  • A direct-drive architecture that eliminates the need for batteries and inverters, simplifying operation and reducing capital and maintenance costs

ElectroMechanica (EM) was responsible for the full system design and electrical specification, including:

  • PV layout and distribution planning
  • Panel engineering and hardware supply
  • Control integration through SCADA and PLC
  • On-site support during installation and commissioning

By combining independent energy, intelligent control, and reliable water storage, the system gives the farm certainty in the face of climate volatility and grid unreliability. It reduces cost exposure while maintaining consistent output. This is not just a solar project. It is a policy-aligned infrastructure model that shows what’s possible when energy, water, and agricultural planning are designed to work together.

The system can move up to 4,000 cubic metres of water per hour during peak operation. Advanced control logic continuously monitors conditions and adjusts flow between the river, dam, and irrigation pivots in real time. This reduces the need for manual intervention, minimises energy waste, and ensures that water delivery is aligned with the crops’ needs throughout the day.

"The technical design tells part of the story, but the real impact lies in what it enables."

The solution designed is not just about powering pumps or moving water efficiently but rather giving the farmer the tools to stay productive when the grid falters or the season doesn’t go to plan. In an environment where uncertainty is the new normal, resilience is the baseline from which need to operate.

Turning Climate Risk into Agricultural Control

The strength of systems like the one deployed on the farm in the Western Cape lies beyond its components in how they anticipate risk. By decoupling irrigation from the grid and daily rainfall patterns, and removing the complexity of inverters and batteries, farms can maintain water and energy availability even under stress. Instead of reacting to drought or power cuts, the operation continues as planned, protecting crops, stabilising yield, and supporting long-term food production. This level of control turns uncertainty from a threat into a manageable factor.

This is where “sustainability” moves from being a corporate buzzword to a real-world action. By combining on-site generation with automated scheduling and real-time control, these systems minimise energy waste, optimise water use, and reduce downtime. They also protect natural resources as there is no over pumping, no unnecessary runoff, and no reliance on fossil fuels to keep the crops alive.

"When farms can manage energy and water with certainty, they can plan planting schedules more confidently and stabilise yield even in poor seasons. This creates a more reliable local food supply that is less vulnerable to external shocks."

Examples elsewhere on the continent echo this approach. In Ethiopia, solar-powered irrigation systems have shown measurable success in increasing resilience to erratic rainfall. Government-backed pilot programmes have demonstrated that smallholder farms equipped with solar-driven pumps and water storage can extend their growing seasons, improve incomes, and protect groundwater reserves. These interventions are part of broader national efforts to align agriculture with climate adaptation and sustainable development goals.

Both examples point to a clear opportunity: when infrastructure is designed around real-world conditions, it becomes a tool for long-term stability. That is what South Africa needs more of: not just infrastructure that works on paper, but systems that deliver on the ground.

Where Technical Expertise Meets National Policy

Food security does not begin with planting. It begins with infrastructure. When energy and water systems are designed to reflect the real conditions farmers face and the broader national goals they serve, they create the foundation for resilient, productive agriculture.

"This is what policy-aligned infrastructure looks like in practice: it reduces dependency on fragile supply networks; it makes better use of local resources; and it gives farmers the certainty they need to plan, grow, and deliver."

At EM, we do more than supply components. We design systems that help farms operate independently, manage climate risk, and deliver consistent output, even when conditions are against them. If you're working on a project where energy, water, and agricultural performance need to align, talk to us about building an infrastructure solution that supports sustainable food production.

Citations

  1. South African Reserve Bank Special Occasional Bulletin of Economic Notes, August 2023
  2. Worst drought in century devastates Southern Africa, Aljazeera, 15 Oct 2024
  3. UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, July 2025
  4. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996
  5. National Food and Nutrition Security Plan for South Africa, 2018 – 2023
  6. National Development Plan 2030, National Planning Commission, August 2012
  7. Piloting Solar Irrigation in Ethiopia, Green People’s Energy, August 2023