FARMING IN THE SKY – FARMER MAKES THE MOST OF AN URBAN SPACE

Andile Matukane, an enterprising young farmer originally from Nkuhlu, a small village outside the little town of Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga, built an agribusiness on the roof of the Menlyn Mall in Pretoria. Establishing a hydroponic farm on the roof of the mall was no easy task and it took Andile two years to convince the centre’s management that she would not collapse their roof with heavy machinery and tons of soil, nor disturb tenants with the loud noise of tractors.

Andile’s vision of a farm was always one of large tracts of land with crops stretching to the horizon. Now she runs her hydroponic farm on the Menlyn Mall rooftop. “If ten years ago someone told me I’d be doing this, I would have laughed,” she says. She grows lettuce, spring onions, rocket and parsley, which she produces mainly for restaurants and retail stores in the shopping centre.