Mining activities are destroying agriculture in Mpumalanga Emalahleni

john Mthembu

Our land in the Highveld region is no longer suitable for growing plants because mining activities have destroyed the precious land we used to practice agriculture and livestock farming.  Everything that you plow dies immediately. 

Mining has caused acid rain, the worst contributing factor to killing the crops in our backyard gardens. The rain becomes toxic from air pollution and mixes with the toxic open land that is opened by these mines when doing open-cast mining.

This happens in Vosman, a formal settlement that is surrounded by approximately 5 mines and the mines move closer to the community day by day. It happens throughout the year, as we plow different kinds of crops varying from season to season. However, those crops do not survive as the land is too toxic and contaminated. The community is leaving Vosman, as they bear the burden of poverty because they can’t practice farming as they used to do.

The activities done by the mine cause air pollution, which then results in acid rain that kills the crops in our gardens. This is a result of runoff water that is toxic as well due to bare lands opened by the mine as we know they overturn the soil in search of coal leaving the land bare.

Rehabilitation will be the only solution to this problem, and later neutralizing the land from the toxic chemicals will also help so that we can be able to farm on our land again.

I advised Mr Msibi to apply ash on his land, and constantly overturn the soil for the crops to grow well. His spinach was drying up and burning due to the toxicity of the land. At least ash will help neutralize the soil.