Farmers urged to use recycled water for plants

From Dzifa Azumah, GNA Special Correspondent, Delft, The Netherlands

Delft (The Netherlands), Oct 9, GNA- Mr Speedy Moodliar, a Senior Manager of the Ethekwini Water and Sanitation Services, Durban, South Africa, has urged scientists to teach farmers who grow crops that are peeled or cooked to use recycled waste water to irrigate their farms.

This is because gray water increases yield, save farmers from the use of fertilisers as well as maximises profit," he told the Ghana News Agency in an interview, at the on-going three-day Global Citywater Futures Summit in Delft , The Netherlands.

The summit brought together water managers, urban planners, regulators, NGOs, donor agencies as well as policy makers from SWITCH cities and towns around the world to discuss and share ideas and experiences with the global network of scientists and help their cities chart a new path to a sustainable " water city of the Future."

SWITCH (Sustainable Water Management Improves Tomorrow's Cities Health) is the name of an action research programme, implemented and co-funded by the European Union and a cross-disciplinary team of 33 partners from 15 countries around the world.

Ghana is part of the partnership.
Mr Moodliar said using gray water is a low cost technology especially for nations who are working at saving their water resources, and the source is available all year round.

"Gray water from households is absolutely free," Mr Moodliar said, adding that, the nutrients in such water are rich, producing high yields.

"We improve the water quality for both underground and surface water by using it for agriculture before releasing it into rivers, streams and the ocean.

Mr Moodliar said the technology has been proven in a number of countries for a long time and it has been found out to deburden the sewerage system as well as producing nutrient rich crops.

"The recycle water is not as clean as tap water and still contains germs, so precaution has to be taken in its usage, and if the rules are followed seriously, profits would be great, health risk minimised and environmental impacts reduced considerably."

He mentioned some of the rules: farmers should not drink the recycled water; they should not use it to wash their clothes or their bodies. The farmers should always ensure that they wash their hands with soap and portable water after working in the farms or gardens; and before eating and drinking.

"Ensure that there is access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities on the farm all the time, while restricting the use of the recycled waste water by children," he added.

Mr Moodliar cautioned that waste water should not be poured on vegetables, but on underground crops as the soil acts as a filter and reduces contamination.

SWITCH aims to bring about a paradigm shift in urban water management away from the existing ad hoc solutions to urban water management and towards a more coherent and integrated approach. The vision of SWITCH is for sustainable urban water management in the 'City of the Future'.

To achieve this goal, SWITCH aims to improve the scientific basis for the development and management of urban water systems, to ensure that they are robust, flexible and adaptable to a range of future global change pressures.

GNA