Photo by Andre van Wyk/allAfrica

South Africa: Urban Subsistence Farmers Spread Wings

All Africa
30 October 2009

Cape Town — A project which began as an effort to empower citizens of Cape Town’s poorest neighbourhoods to grow their own food has mushroomed into a scheme for selling vegetables for the city’s wealthier residents.

When AllAfrica first visited the project, operated under the banner Abalimi Bezekhaya (‘Planters of the Home’), nearly two years ago, its focus was on urban woman farmers practicing subsistence agriculture.

But when our reporters returned this week to one of the food gardens in the low-income suburbs spread around the edges of the city, tell-tale white markers were testimony to what community organizer Rob Small called “a big step forward.”

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Efforts by black, white farmers largely separate in city

By MINEHAHA FORMAN
October 30, 2009
The Michigan Messenger

DETROIT — The Motor City has been most famous for its past industrial endeavors. That’s why it’s still a bit surprising to some that within the city limits, there are more than 700 urban farms that yield more than 120 tons of produce each year. When harvest season comes around, the social aspect of urban farming shines through, with farmers coming together to celebrate the season at parties brimming with locally grown food and drink.

But to those paying attention, harvest time also highlights a less attractive facet of Detroit’s agricultural social scene: social divisions between black and white urban farming groups.

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