Advanced Agriculture And Food

CSIR starts producing mycotoxins to help ensure sound local mycotoxin measurement standards for food safety testing

CSIR researchers are producing mycotoxins that will support the National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA) to provide more affordable and easily accessible measurement standards for mycotoxin testing by laboratories locally and on the continent. Mycotoxins are produced by different type...

Research progress in effective and affordable treatment of mine wastewater

Researchers at the CSIR are building on their early successes in the development of technologies for the treatment of mine wastewater by developing a pilot plant to treat acid mine drainage and recover metals. CSIR senior researcher Dr Vhahangwele Masindi is a young trailblazer and inventor of as...

Keeping tabs on carbon dioxide: A South African perspective on the 2017 Global Carbon Budget

The just-released 2017 Global Carbon Budget, an annual update on the carbon budget published through a partnership of the international science community, shows that the increase in fossil fuel emissions was lower than that of a decade ago. Scientists believe that it may point to a global decline...

CSIR launches 2nd edition Climate Risk and Vulnerability handbook for Southern Africa

The 2nd edition of the Climate Risk and Vulnerability handbook was launched on 5 October at the CSIR 6th Biennial Conference in Pretoria. Highlighting the costs of weather-related disasters between 1980 and 2015 in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), this latest rendition of the cr...

CSIR's satellite imagery technology detects signs of sinkhole in Centurion

Scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) recently detected a formation of a sinkhole in Centurion, Pretoria, using state-of-the-art satellite imaging technology which they have developed. Andre Theron, a student researcher at the CSIR, used the technology named Azim...

First of its kind CSIR study puts a price tag to the impacts of algae on irrigation costs

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has estimated that commercial farmers in the Dwars River area of the Western Cape spend approximately R600 000 per year ridding their irrigation systems of filamentous algae. The CSIR has taken the first step in formulating a tradable perm...

CSIR Climate modellers take on enormous task of modelling the future of climate change through an African lens

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is developing Africa's first Earth System Model that would make an input into the sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A total of 30 global climate models exist, with only the Australian mo...

CSIR and PwC define the 'business as usual' of the future

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) undertook research with support from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to define the "business as usual" of the future, whereby resilience is employed to ensure sustainability in the face of modern day global challenges facing businesses. In li...

Vaal Dam on Facebook and Twitter

The Department of Water Affairs has joined forces with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to make the Vaal Dam the first dam in South Africa to use internet social media to disseminate information via facebook and twitter. Following information on the Vaal Dam is one of the...

Researchers warn of deteriorating water quality at Loskop Dam

A two-year study of the quality of irrigation water from Loskop Dam and its effect on crop production in the Groblersdal area, funded by the Loskop Irrigation Board (LIB), has shown very low levels of E. coli and no detectable levels of other disease-causing bacteria. However, warns CSIR limnolog...