Rodents are a major source of damage to crops in urban agriculture and unfortunately, Siyakhana has not been left unscathed by this problem. In order to avoid using dangerous and polluting poisons, we choose to rather implement the Permaculture method. This encourages the use of integrated pest management using ecological processes to control pest populations. And so, we provided a habitat for owls.

Working closely with Prof Neville Pillay of WITS' animal, plant and environmental sciences unit, we created and introduced an owl-box. The objective of this owl box is to provide a comfortable roost so that an owl will be able to patrol the site around dusk and dawn, thus eradicating the rodent problem.