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On-The-Air (08/07/2005)

Martin SAFM 080705.mp3

8th July 2005

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm's AMLive's radio anchor Nikiwe Bikitsha speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday's At the Coalface transcript:

Bikitsha: Datadots, tiny particles the size of a grain of sand, are socking it to South Africa's car thieves. What are they?

Creamer: Datadots are pin-head sized dots with data on them. Thieves for some time now have made short shrift of chassis and engines numbers. In fact, they are able to 're-birth' a vehicle in 48 hours, so it has been easy for them to remove car engine numbers and chassis numbers. Now they are going to have the sweat the small stuff, because 10 000 tiny dots with information on them are being sprayed on to 88 different places on vehicles. This in effect means that vehicles have their own DNA. Already 5 000 taxis in Kwazulu-Natal are equipped with these. Toyota company has decided to spray them in-factory on to all Quantum minibuses and they are saying that 10 000 taxis Gauteng are also awaiting datadot protection. People can put datadots on their boats, motorbikes or anything they like to give their vehicles an embedded identity. The little dots have got information like ID numbers and chassis numbers on them, which are laser-etched on to them. The dots also have ultra-violet light traces, which can be picked up easily by the police. There is all sorts of good thinking in these locally-made datadots that are produced in George in the Western Cape.

Bikitsha: New genetically-modified cotton is being grown in South African on six tests sites. Where?

Perlman: The area around Loskop irrigation has been favourable for cotton growing. In fact, cotton growers there are having record crops. We see the poor maize farmers wringing their hands, but the cotton farmers are dancing with glee. The thing that has helped them is genetic-modification (GM), which strikes fear into some environmentalists' hearts, but is obviously doing well for cotton farmers. Cotton around the world has progressed with a GM input. Now, they are going to take GM a step further: Monsanto has got a trial going on six sites in South Africa, five in Mpumalanga around the Marble Hall, Groblersdal and White River areas, and one in Limpopo at Musina. The plan is to put two GM benefits into one plant. They are trying to create a cotton plant that will not only be immune to herbicide, but also immune to the bollworm. If this succeeds, farmers will enjoy even better yields than at present, but even now yields are already well up, costs already well down and quality so good the cotton is good enough to export.

Bikitsha: Ex-prisoners are producing low-cost eco-friendly coffins from invasive alien vegetation. Tell us about that.

Creamer: Sounds a bit eerie. Ex-cons producing coffins from alien vegetation, but they are killing three birds with one stone in doing so. We have the Department of Water Affairs, which is removing as much of South Africa's invasive alien vegetation as possible, because it sucks-up too much water, throttles our biodiversity and retards agriculture. At the same time, there are faith-based groups who say that South Africa's coffins are too expensive and need to be more affordable. Then you have the Department of Correctional Services, which wants to integrate ex-prisoners into society. Well, with this, they are doing all three things at once, an innovative project that has received a R1-million award from the World Bank, which says that this is a great 'developmental marketplace' winner. The Department of Water Affairs will continue to remove the alien vegetation; wood from that will then be used to make lower-cost coffins, which faith-based groups are applauding as being affordable and ecofriendly, and former prisoners will become part of the teams that make up the coffins. So, you have got job creation, added-value job creation and you are bringing ex-prisoners back into the fold, all integrated into one project.

Bikitsha: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he'll be back with us at the same time next week.

Click here to hear original audio
To watch Creamer Media's latest video reports, click here
 

Edited by Yolande Botes
Creamer Media Assistant Chief Operating Officer and Personal Assistant to the Publishing Editor

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