Sovereign Metals Ltd has provided landowners immediate access to land to start maize crop farming without missing a planting season, after successfully completing rehabilitation work on a test pit at the Kasiya natural graphite and rutile project in Malawi.
The company backfilled the site, improving soil, having begun planting rehabilitation crops in December last year.
SVM continues to provide support and training to landowners to improve crop yields, including introducing conservation farming techniques which have already tripled yields.
“Excellent” rehabilitation result
“The successful return of farmers to their land within such a short time and without missing a single planting season after mining and backfilling 170,000 cubic square metres is an excellent outcome,” Sovereign Metals managing director and CEO Frank Eagar said.
“This demonstration of responsible mining and land rehabilitation will build on our positive community relationships.
“The pilot phase of 90 farmers selected for our Conservation Farming program has been increased to 350 for this season.
“Early indications are that the second season of this program will exceed the 300% yield increases achieved in the pilot phase.
“The empirical data collected from these trials will feed directly into our definitive feasibility study designs for mine closure and land rehabilitation.”
Alongside the staple maize crops, SVM is also testing a variety of other rehabilitation crops including giant bamboo, sun hemp, groundnuts and mung beans.
The company says its tests demonstrate how mined land can be quickly and efficiently returned to productive agricultural land during future operations at full scale.