Micro-farming among the poor Cape Town

Abalimi Bezekhaya is a 35 year old development organization that is based in Cape Town, South Africa. We train and equip people and their communities for food security and urban agriculture. We aim to create a food secure world with an abundance of healthy and local, organically grown food through community and home gardening and believe that by empowering communities to grow their own food, care for the environment, and work together in all health and education initiatives, we can ensure a healthy future for all. We work at a grassroots level as well as a theoretical/research level, implementing practical and sustainable solutions through up-lifting communities.

Abalimi operates two garden centres in the heart rural areas within an urban landscape. These centres train individuals in how to organically grow their own food to create a more food secure community. The outreach team are constantly meeting with farmers in their gardens to problem solve and offer support to the wider network. Abalimi’s education department manage the basic training as well as a new Young Farmer Training Centre (YFTC) hoping to bring in a new generation of urban farmers with a focus on growing commercially. Abalimi manages the resources, payments, and researchers/volunteers who come to Cape Town to learn more about the in-depth approach to urban gardening and farming through Abalimi attracting international attention. 

Harvest of Hope (HoH), a project of Abalimi that guarantees the purchase from community garden farmers, this relationship with farmers is unlike any other program available in the Western Cape. Our team of outreach and production specialists support farmers through targeted/one-to-one support and subsidized supplies. Abalimi aids the farmers in collecting harvested vegetables for HoH which buys and resells throughout the local market. All training and growing methods focus on organic, chemical, and pesticide free solutions. The customers or members who buy our farmers produce, enter into a “CSA” like program in that they accept seasonal and local varieties year round rather than selecting their own produce. With HoH you can actually “know your farmer” while connecting with the seasons, eating healthy, and building a greener community. Our production has increased 27% since last year and in January 2017 we broke the 10 000kg produce mark for the month

Hello dear GlobalGiving Friends, one and all.

Im late with this report so our project may get downgraded but never mind we carry on anyway :)

Here in SA we have been suffering a drought and our water resources are under severe pressure. But our family farmers carry on because they are resourceful, resilient and committed.  There are other wonderful projects like ours dotted about the country and the Re-Evolution of Family Farming is under way.

We are quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) the leading light in South Africa and are lauded even in Nigeria (where I am also busy) since we are the first project to have created a resilient, regenerative family farming system among the poor and under-educated,  who otherwise would be hopelessly jobless.

Unemployed and under-educated people (and even educated people these days) are at a complete loss as to how to "get a job" when jobs are fast dissappearing in favour of mechanisation. Machines are so much more reliable than human beings,  after all!

Nevertheless, machines wont feed the world anytime soon, much less Monsanto. Especially they wont feed the "poor"and excluded who comprise about half the world's population if we are honest with ourselves.

So I attach a lovely article about F&G Trust (which is the local trust I run to support Abalimi) and some others who are doing great work. If you just look carefully around you, you will see the re-evolution of family farming everywhere ,especially hidden in the cracks. Even in the "First" World where most of you probably live.

Please keep your love and support coming- even if we hit our money target. The work does not stop because we hit target - its intergenerational and wont stop till every person on the planet has enough Good Food to eat and enough money in their pocket to live.  We work for a realistic future where *everyone* can eat Good Food again ,not just the priveleged. Its a no-brainer really. Local unpoisoned food can easily again become the norm while millions of micro-farming entreprises can be created that create lost of modest but also plentiful cash flow.  Its a Happening! and you are helping to make it happen.Thank you

• Kulula_Airline_article_Nov_2016.pdf (PDF)