Growing food for the greater good
To feed the world’s growing population, global food production needs to increase by 70% by 2050, and Africa – the continent where half of the world’s population growth will occur – is set to be hardest hit.
Experts agree that community gardens, which transform unused urban spaces into productive food sources, have to be part of the solution. But, as Platteland discovered when we spoke to gardeners rich and poor in all four corners of the country, the warm and fuzzy American and European success stories you read about on the internet are hard to replicate in wounded Mzansi.
Growing a business
No discussion about community gardens in South Africa can ignore Sheryl Ozinsky, the woman who has transformed a disused bowling green in Oranjezicht, Cape Town, into the Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF), a nonprofit project that includes a thriving vegetable garden and an extremely popular Saturday market celebrating local food, culture and community, and generates upwards of R30 million for the Western Cape economy every year.
Sheryl is convinced that there aren’t enough community gardens in South Africa and sees them as a way to reduce unemployment; solve social, physical and mental problems; and build communities. “Every hospital, school and prison should have a vegetable garden. Of course water is an issue, but if there’s a genuine desire to make lives
