Subsistence farming is the life blood of communities in Sierra Leone

SPIN-Farming, now established in Matindi Town, Sierra Leone, will extend its roots to Samuel Town, Temini Town, Pueh Town and Torbgeh Town. These are five communities that will experience changes from now on. The people will be educated in small plot commercial farming. They will experience the benefit of their labors. They will learn how to produce fresh and healthy food for their families and communities. The project will help to identify technologies that might be used to sustain the living conditions of people in the rural areas. It will improve their farming skills, information sharing and cooperation at local, national and international levels.

The Project is intended to benefit about four hundred (400) young people within Matindi and its surrounding communities. The project shall be ongoing and more people will benefit from its various training programmes planed. Each training programme will be determined by the executive. After completion of the training programme, each trainee shall be presented with a certificate of proficiency and they will be encouraged to set up their own enterprise. About fifteen to twenty young men and women will be enrolled in each of the training components.

See the funding drive here.

Published by the government of Zimbabwe in The Herald

Editorial
The Herald
Jan 3, 2012
[Note from Wikipedia: The Herald has for some time been noted for its completely one sided reporting for the government of President Robert Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party, and its demonization of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). See Wiki here.]

Excerpt:

In Harare, some would-be urban farmers have argued that once they apply for urban plots it takes ages to have responses from the authorities hence they have no choice but to cultivate anywhere.

We therefore urge the authorities in Harare, especially those tasked with that job, to move fast once people apply for plots for urban farming.

Harare has large tracts of open land specifically set aside for cultivation. Could it be that there is no proper planning that there are delays to allocate land to those who need it?

If this is done properly, haphazard self-allocation of pieces of land in the city by residents will be a thing of the past.

Read the complete article here.

Also see Zimbabwe: Urban Farming – No Myth, Its Real

By Shingai T Kawadza
Zim Daily
29 November 2011

Excerpt:

In other words, planning must be flexible and not rigid and be prepared to adapt to changing urban conditions and demands. We need planners who are pro-poor in their approach to planning because urban areas house both the affluent and the poor.

Citing the Regional Town and Country Planning Act as a justification to destroy urban agriculture is actually misplaced. Let alone it is a colonial software which is British oriented.

A new planning legislation that is purely Zimbabwean and that addresses dynamic needs of our societies is what Zimbabwe currently require to address contemporary challenges like urban agriculture.

Read the complete article here.

See larger format of the film here.

4o minute film

Director/Producer: Ella von der Haide
Produced in 2006 – Germany

Synopsis:

Community gardens are widespread in South Africa. Traditional methods and innovative technologies are being used to grow organic food and create communities. The community gardens are places of hope, solidarity, and sometimes of active resistance against official neo-liberal politics. The four examples from the film show three outstanding projects: Women Peace Garden in the Cape Flats,

Green House Project (an eco-technological demonstration centre that includes 2000-square-meter community garden in the centre of Johannesburg), Taifun Park (a self-organized community park in Soweto), Itsoseng Women’s Project (a big self-organized productive community garden in Orange Farm that is involved in interesting political projects).

See larger format of the film here.

See more about Ella here.

The Constant Gardeners – Confronting climate change and poverty, a new crop of city farmers comes of age in Africa

By Jocelyn C. Zuckerman
Onearth
November 23, 2011

Excerpt:

But as Njenga is happy to show me, they’re finding new ways to cope. We meet up with Catherine Wangui, a friendly 25-year-old sporting a newsboy cap, who tells us how, about four years ago, representatives of the French nongovernmental organization Solidarités International, which does emergency relief and reconstruction work around the world, came here and distributed old flour sacks to some of the women. They explained how to fill them with soil and rocks before poking holes in the sides and pushing in seeds.

OnEarth magazine’s Jocelyn C. Zuckerman traveled to Kenya and Ghana with photographer Antonio Bolfo to see how residents of some of Africa’s largest and poorest cities are turning to urban agriculture in the face of poverty and drought.

Wangui, who grew up in Kibera, stops in front of three of these “vertical gardens” — four-foot-tall sacks plumped out with dirt and sprouting gangly tendrils of kale and spinach. Her 5-year-old daughter, Grace, who is playing nearby in a neat dress and braids, now gets fresh vegetables every day, says Wangui, who sells some of what she grows at a little wooden kiosk that she runs. Njenga also introduces us to people who, in spaces barely the size of closets, are raising chickens and profiting from them. Not that everyone is suddenly thriving; one young woman tells us how her garden sacks have enabled her to buy sugar and cooking oil, but hits me up nonetheless for some spare shillings — to the serious chagrin of Njenga.

Read the complete article here.

L’agence IND nous propose un nouvel outil de développement urbain pour Casablanca

By Mohamed Achraf Sehnoun
aMush
Nov 22, 2011

Excerpt:

Par le biais d’un concept original “Agriculture urbaine”, les architectes tentent de doter les habitants des douars de Casablanca ( population mixte issue de la campagne) d’une boîte à outils leurs permettant de diminuer leurs dépenses, d’améliorer leurs train de vie et de les responsabiliser vis à vis de leurs devoirs de citoyen.

L’approche adoptée par cette équipe vise à mettre en place des techniques adéquates pour une agriculture in situ dans un contexte particulier marqué par une urbanisation progressive du paysage rural. Comment adapter des techniques spécifiques compatibles avec ce type d’environnement fragile et très fragmenté? La pression foncière menace les habitants de se déplacer à des zones encore plus éloignées.

Read the complete article here.

Sky’s the limit for rooftop farming

By Barbara Cole
Sunday Tribune
November 21, 2011

Excerpt:

Durban, South Africa – Delegates to the massive Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) in Durban are going to learn all about rooftop farming – and they will not have too far too travel either.

Just across the road from the International Convention Centre, where the global conference is being held, there are cabbages, onions and spinach growing next to the taxi rank in Monty Naicker (Pine) Street.

Photo by Charli Charles Denison.

Delegates, who are due to descend on Durban in their thousands at the weekend, will get to see how to grow food even though there might not be enough space. Even a wall can lend itself to growing tomatoes and granadillas.

An urban farm, which has taken only a few months to develop, is on the roof of the “Priority Zone” building – a former warehouse – at 77 Monty Naicker Street, where a pilot project has been running for three years.

Rooftop mural in progress.

Read the complete article here.

See more at Priority Zone’s Facebook page here.

“One day all AFHCO buildings will have rooftop gardens producing different vegies and herbs.”

Lebo Mashego
AFHCO
Urban Development Manager
Johannesburg, South Africa

Excerpt from AFCO website:

In 2009 Afhco approached the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) to partner in establishing a pilot Rooftop Vegetable Garden. Through their Community Social Initiative (CSI) programme, the grant was given and Afhco’s Urban Development Manager, Lebo Mashego went to work on the project. A concept design was developed for a sustainable garden constructed solely from recycled materials, in the form of old tyres for planters and wooden pallets for the planters to stand on. A worm garden was also planned, to ensure a constant supply of compost and fertiliser.

To further ensure the success of the project, Afhco enlisted the help of The Greenhouse Project, an established NGO that promotes sustainable construction and living strategies. Their input and advice, based on years of experience with food gardening, was immensely helpful in creating this first-of-a-kind project in Johannesburg. With the help of the JDA grant, Afhco was able to fund the waterproofing of the roof, installing paved pathways, securing the garden with fencing, and fitting an irrigation system.

Visit their website here.

Live-in-slums

From Abitare
Nov. 2011

Project General Direction: Gaetano Berni – Silvia Orazi (Ong Liveinslums)
Scientific Coordination: Dr. Agronomo Tommaso Sposito – Prof. Elisabetta Bianchessi – Dr. Agronomo Fabio Campana In Collaboration With Prof. Claudia Sorlini (Cooperation Area Representative – Milan Università Degli Studi – Faculty Of Agriculture ) And With Prof. Franco Sangiorgi (Department Of Agricultural Engineering -– Milan Università Degli Studi)

The microjardins are vegetable gardens without soil, realized using mineral layers that replace the fertile soil: these transportable vegetable gardens are placed within containers obtained from recycled materials. This method of cultivating without soil in the City of Dead, besides solving the problem of fertilizing sand, also prevents desecration of the burial places while creating easy transportable structures, very practical in case the owner needs to leave the area.

In each container different vegetables are grown, chosen by the same inhabitants according to their eating habits, and complying with the application possibilities of the microjardins, that not allow the growing of vegetables with long vertical roots. Thanks to this technique, the members of every family, besides satisfying their subsistence needs, can improve their quality of life through a complementary income, by selling the products obtained with their microjardins at the markets of the quarter they live in.

Read the complete article here.

Gardener Turns Garbage Dump into a Successful Garden and Supports his Family

By Nicholas Parkinson
Urban Agriculture in Ethiopia
USAID Urban Gardens Program Ethiopia
02 November 2011

Excerpt:

Sometimes when Samson Aberra is working in the garden, planting seedlings or replenishing his nursery, onlookers gather to watch him toil. What they don’t know is that Samson Aberra is not “toiling”—he’s barely working, he claims. In fact, he is doing what he loves: gardening.

Samson’s garden lies next to the main highway running through the Ethiopian highland town of Dessie, located in the northeast of the country. The garden forms a triangle between the main road and a contaminated stream that meanders through the city in its journey to the low lying plains below.

One year before, the same land was ankle deep in plastic bags and bottles, worn out shoes and dead animals. Samson wondered why the city would allow the eyesore, not to mention the waste of land.

Complete story here.

The Harare City Council now has the blessing of the Zimbabwe Republic Police to slash crops grown in the city in an effort to curb environmental degradation brought about by urban farming. The move has received with mixed feelings from residents and political parties.

By Seven Nematiyere
The Zimbabwean
09.11.11

Excerpt:

With the coming of a new growing season, all places without buildings on them are being cultivated. These include football, netball and basketball pitches, road-sides and recreational parks as well as wetlands. This has resulted in serious environmental degradation including soil erosion and siltation. Most drains in the city in such places like Glen Norah, Tafara, Highfield, Kambuzuma and Mufakose are blocked with soil resulting in flooding that sometimes affects the sewerage system.

This has put enormous pressure on the city council as it fights bursting sewer pipes and flooding with mosquitoes breeding in stagnant water. City Council health services director, Dr. Stanley Mungofa, has said the city’s health institutions are battling an increase in water-borne diseases like dysentery and malaria owing to poor water management systems including the blockage of drainage pipes and stagnant water brought about by urban agriculture.

ZRP Harare Province Spokesperson, Inspector James Sabau confirmed that the police has given a green light to the council to slash crops to enforce the ban on urban agriculture.

Read the complete article here.

Kibera is a division of Nairobi Area, Kenya, and a province and neighbourhood of the city of Nairobi, located 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the second largest urban slum in Africa. The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera’s population as 170,070, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people. (Wikipeida)

By Kiberia TV
KiberaTV is citizen journalism like you have never before seen it: the story of one of Africa’s largest and most controversial slums told by those who know it the best.

Our mission is to look for those whose eyes have been closed; to speak for those whose tongues have been cut; to fight for those whose fists have been tied. Our vision is a world where we don’t need to exist.

KiberaTV is an initiative of Hot Sun Foundation, started with together with the alumni of Kibera Film School Class of 2009 – our pilot class.

KiberaTV has grown from 3 KFS alumni to over 10 reporters / cameramen / producers and editors, from Kibera and outside of Kibera.

See Kiberia TV here.

Your Street Cape Town Winners – Let Us Grow from Design Indaba on Vimeo.

Growing and greening the city – “Let Us Grow”

World Design Capital Bid 2014
Nov 1, 2011

Excerpt:

“Let Us Grow” is a project to beautify Cape Town and drive interest in urban agriculture as part of growing hyper-local produce on unused or derelict plots in the city,” explains Andrea. “We also plan to drive community interaction and create employment opportunities with the initiative. The inspiration for Let Us Grow comes from various urban greening initiatives around the world and the team’s interest in promoting sustainable living.”

The initiative would focus on creating community gardens (even on rooftops in the CBD) that would benefit the environment, beautify the city, and engage the community (including local schools, who could use the gardens as an educational tool). The fruit, herbs, and vegetables grown in the gardens would be sold to local restaurants and residents. The revenue raised from the sale of the produce would be ploughed back into the initiative to create more gardens and to train and hire more employees.

“Everyone from the community is welcome to come and farm,” says Andrea, “but we plan to have a farm manager and two farm workers employed to manage the project on a daily basis.”

Read the complete article here.

Cities are always in flux and so old rules are broken and new ones are made concerning many dimensions of urban life.

By Danielle Nierenberg
Nourishing the Planet
Oct 21, 2011

Excerpt:

Diana Lee-Smith is a founder of the Mazingira Institute, an independent research and development organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. She carried out the first survey of urban agriculture in Kenya in 1985 and has over 20 years of experience in research, policy, and advocacy work on urban poverty, gender, development, and environment issues. Lee-Smith has written extensively on gender and urban agriculture, and her published works include Women Managing Resources: African Research on Gender, Urbanisation and Environment and Healthy City Harvests: Generating Evidence to Guide Policy on Urban Agriculture. She holds a doctorate in Architecture and Development Studies and was recently a visiting professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, where she was editing two books on urban agriculture in Africa.

Urban agriculture has been around since the building of the first cities, yet not everyone is aware that farming in cities is not only a possibility, but can improve diets, livelihoods, and overall food security. Why do you think this is?

The relationship between cities and food is so fundamental that it is almost too obvious to analyze. The origin of cities and their meaning has been to distinguish them from agriculture. Everything about cities says “not agriculture”—at least in our minds. That is the way we think of it now, but it really came about back when the fields were too big to contain in the cities and to defend from attacking armies. During battles people would scamper to the cities and let invading armies raid the fields. As a result, the sense that fields are outside the city has stuck.

And then the industrialization of food took it to an extreme level. Industrialized food production formalized agriculture as something that takes place only outside the city. Agriculture has become something that feels too big and too separate from the city to ever actually take place there.

But urban agriculture has always gone on for one simple reason–people have to eat. The relationship is fundamental. Yet we continue to imagine this dichotomy between farms and cities exists–where there is a city, there is no agriculture.

Read the complete interview here.

By Bettina Baumgartner and Hasan Belevi
EAWAG – Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science & Technology SANDEC – Dept. of Water & Sanitation in Developing Countries
Sept 2001
34 pages

Excerpt from Summary and Conclusions:

More scientific research is required on the following issues:

The actual and potential contribution of urban agriculture to food security and poverty alleviation has to be quantified.

Nutrient gaps, including the demand for fertilisers and organic waste as a function of different crops and geographic conditions have to be quantified.

The prevailing and potential organic material fluxes, including production, consumption, disposal, and urban agriculture in different regions have to be investigated to identify the role of urban agriculture as organic waste recipient and food supplier.

Reuse options have to be elaborated at different levels, starting with the household level.

Organic waste treatment and reuse techniques which are easily maintained and transferred to local conditions have to be investigated.

Information has to be acquired on storage, mixtures, application rates, and handling precautions of soil improvers.

Long-term studies have to be conducted to identify the short and long-term effects of different water sources (wastewater, surface waters, etc.) and different nutrient sources (compost, treated faecal sludge, fertiliser, etc.) on the soil quality. The results should allow the setting of quality requirements for irrigation and reuse as soil conditioner and fertiliser.

Research on water requirements and water availability in a region has to be conducted to assess the impact of urban agriculture on the water household of the region, and the potential of wastewater reuse in urban agriculture.

The negative impacts of urban agriculture on surface and groundwater quality have to be quantified.

Contribution of urban agriculture to improving the health status of the urban farmer and his family has to be quantified.

Transmission of diseases and hazardous substances from crops and animals to consumers during food consumption has to be identified.

Transmission of diseases and hazardous substances from wastewater, solid waste and animals to urban farmers during agricultural activities has to be investigated.

The question whether urban agriculture provides additional breeding sites for disease vectors has to be examined.

Creation of favourable preconditions for urban agriculture by urban planners has to be investigated.

The opportunities for the urban farmer to gain access to credits have to be identified.

Urban agriculture and its related activities as part of urban planning have to be overviewed.

Integration of urban agriculture in a regional waste management plan has to be examined.

Institutionalisation of administrative procedures relating to urban agriculture has to be investigated.

Read the complete paper here.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that produce from Africa’s small urban farms jumped by 122 percent from 2005-10.

By Marko Phiri
Written for UPI
Sept. 28, 2011

Excerpt:

From a modest piece of land provided by the local municipality, 69-year-old Nancy Witbooi is ensuring her community gets enough to eat.

Her weathered face reveals how tough it can be to toil in the Western Cape’s unpredictable climate. But Witbooi still has energy to work the land.

“I have been growing vegetables in this garden for years now and some of our produce goes to feed vulnerable groups like the elderly and people living with HIV,” Witbooi said.

Farmers like Witbooi are essential for bringing food security to Africa, the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development said. About 500 million Africans farm small plots of land averaging 7 acres, IFAD said.

Read the complete article here.

Urban agriculture faces the prospect of growing to unprecedented levels in the near future.

By Shingai T Kawadza
The Herald
Published by the Government of Zimbabwe
30 September 2011
Shingai T Kawadza is a final year Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Rural and Urban Planning at the University of Zimbabwe.

Excerpt:

There is clear evidence that urban agriculture is increasing rapidly in urban areas, particularly in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia and Tanzania.

It has become an essential socio-economic activity for the urban poor particularly in Harare and a great contributor to food security and income generation for the poor families. With the 2015 deadline for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and the widespread notion of sustainable development on cards,

the inevitable factors of rapid urbanisation coupled with the dwindling socio-economic environment faced by most developing nations, urban agriculture face the prospect of growing to unprecedented levels in the near future.

The only constriction is its growth in residential development. In addition, the Herald of 13 July, 2010 carried a headline, “City of Harare boundaries extended” of which it was reported that 20 farms have been sidelined for residential development hence clearly outlining the fact that agriculture is being seen as a peripheral activity yet it is the backbone of the country in the region and that taps from the responsibility of ensuring food security in the Sadc region.

Read the complete article here.

There will be 35 million urban farmers on the continent by 2020.

By Anna Plyushteva
The Big City
Sept 11, 2011
Anna is a PhD student at University College London and contributor to a forthcoming book on the politics of space and place.

Excerpt:

Greater government involvement is needed for urban agriculture to emerge out of marginality and illegality and deliver greater environmental and social benefits. Most importantly, without official regulation urban food can create some serious problems. At present, informal farmers and their produce are exposed to contamination with organic and non-organic pollutants, which is a serious threat to public health.

So is the uncontrolled use of pesticides, particularly risky in the densely populated urban environment. Urban farmers also compete with the rest of the city’s activities for precious water resources, whereas dedicated water recycling strategies could be developed on a city-wide scale.

However, the first signs that things might slowly be changing are appearing. Some local authorities are beginning to recognise farming as a legitimate urban activity, and looking for ways to maximise its contribution to a city’s life while controlling possible risks. South Africa’s Cape Town introduced its first Urban Agriculture Policy document in 2007, focusing on the importance of urban agriculture for poverty alleviation and job creation, and recognising that security of land tenure is one of the most serious problems urban farmers face.

Read the complete article here.

China and her fellow gardeners say they would never go back to prostitution

By Nicholas Parkinson
Urban Agriculture in Ethiopia
Aug 25, 2011

Excerpt:

When 29 year old China Dessale approached the Wain Hotel where she used to work as a commercial sex worker, carrying a basket teeming with cabbage, carrots, lettuce and eggs, the hotel owner couldn’t believe his eyes. He remembered taking in China when she was 15 years old. In desperation, China had joined the same hotel to make a livelihood in Ethiopia’s risky commercial sex worker industry.

Today, China and 17 sex workers from Kombolcha work in a USAID Urban Gardens Program (USAID UGP) garden only a half kilometer from the hotel. The group originally started a poultry farm in 2006 through local implementing partner Nigat in the town of Kombolcha, in northeastern Ethiopia. Last year they diversified their portfolio and added vegetables to the thousands of eggs they were selling to various restaurants and cafés around town.

In 2010, the group graduated from the USAID UGP program and has been gardening nutritious vegetables since. In an odd play of events, their former care-taker has become one of their most valued customers. After graduation the group expanded its garden and with the 2010 savings purchased another 250 chickens.

Complete story here.

Antananarivo produces 90%-100% of the vegetables and 15% to 25% of the rice it consumes each year.

Christine Aubry
INRA press service
21/07/2011

Excerpts:

The capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo now counts about 2 million inhabitants. Originally built on the top of a hill, the city then spread to neighbouring hills and their slopes before starting to cover the marshland in the valleys during recent decades.

Local agriculture covers nearly 43% of the 425 km² or so of the urban region; although it is present today in the centre of the city, it has long occupied the most flood-prone low-lying areas, the nearby plain and periurban hills. It benefits from a tropical, high-altitude climate (1250-1400 m).

The city benefits from a very broad diversity of production systems. The common features are rice-growing and/or market gardening, and the frequent presence of small livestock units. Market gardening predominates in the hills, alongside small livestock farms raising cattle. The growing of watercress has developed in low-lying areas within the city. Rice predominates on flood plains and other low-lying land.

These production systems form part of the three main types of household occupations, whether these are devoted exclusively to agricultural activities and exploitating their products (direct sale) or land (brick-making), whether at least one member of the family has an external job or whether the farmer himself also has another job.

Read the complete article here.

Radio Interview in Zimbabwe

Interview by Busani Bafana
Agfax – Reporting Science in Africa
September 2011

Interview with two urban farmers who belong to the Northvale Farmers Association, Mr Leonard Mafuwa as well as Mr Mlamu Limkula, who are urban farmers on the outskirts of Bulawayo.

In much of Africa, growing food crops on small plots of land within the city is frowned upon by urban authorities. However, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, a more positive attitude to urban agriculture is developing. A multi-stakeholder forum has been established to lobby for urban farming, and the city council is in the process of developing a strategic plan, as well as policies and by-laws, to optimise urban farm production. Two urban farmers and an economic adviser to the forum discuss some of the challenges and solutions for city-based agriculture.

Full transcript

Bafana
Urban agriculture has, for many years, been seen as a backyard activity. Surprisingly it has a growing following in Bulawayo, where more than 1000 urban farmers have formed farming groups to push for the recognition of these city farmers who feed the city. I will be speaking to two urban farmers who belong to the Northvale Farmers Association, Mr Leonard Mafuwa as well as Mr Mlamu Limkula, who are urban farmers on the outskirts of Bulawayo. Mr Mafuwa I will start with you. How do you see the role of urban farming in the provision of food within the city?

Mafuwa
Urban farming has been neglected for the past years, but urban farmers are actually people who are doing a great job to the residents of the city of Bulawayo. To begin with, the farmers are actually providing food to the city residents, and not ordinary food but fresh food. As you have been walking around you saw that we are growing a number of fresh vegetables. We have onions, we are growing garlic, spinach, carrots, you name it, all these vegetables are being consumed by the city of Bulawayo residents. Before, people used to get vegetables from as far as Harare, and some as far as Chipinge, but when those vegetables get here they won’t be as fresh as the vegetables that we supply from nearby plots here.

Bafana
As city farmers, what challenges do you face?

Mafuwa
The challenges we are facing are that we are not getting the full value of our produce. When we send these vegetables to the market, we send them to well-established markets, and these markets they don’t give us the full value of our produce. In other words we are not getting the right price for our fresh vegetables that we are producing.

Bafana
I will ask Mr Mlamuli Mguni, another farmer in the same association, why do you think that urban farmers do not have the same recognition as any other farmer?

Mguni
If you are farming here we are not being recognised to the extent like other farmers, because those are big, but we as urban farmers, we have got maybe two acres, one hectare, it is enough for us to supply the Bulawayo urban people. We are doing the same role of farming. Unfortunately that we are doing this at a small scale, but we are supplying to feed the people of Bulawayo.

Bafana
Mr Mafuwa I could as well ask you if there are any farmers who will be listening to this programme who will be interested in going into urban farming, what sort of advice would you give them?

Mafuwa
The advice I would give to other urban farmers is, farming is all about producing food for the people, and urban farming is not all about vast pieces of land. I think if we utilise the small pieces of land that we have fully, we can be able to feed the city of Bulawayo.

Bafana
What sort of assistance in terms of policy or any other assistance would you want to see from government or even from the local authority?

Mafuwa
I think as small urban farmers, the assistance that we might need; to begin with, the banks should also recognise us. Because as we do our operations we have a number of challenges that we face, like we are using old borehole pumps. It becomes very difficult to repair and replace, some of them need replacement. So if the government and the banks, as well as the council, can also recognise us and provide us with loans. And the other challenge also is tillage. If we can, as an association maybe get a tractor that belongs to our association, that can be doing the tillage for us, our work can be much, much easier.

Bafana
While growing of food crops within the city is frequently opposed by urban authorities, Bulawayo is taking a more positive approach. For example, the city has set up a Multi-Stakeholder Forum on urban farming, so that issues related to urban agriculture can be discussed and farmers’ needs recognised. The Forum is organised by SNV, a Dutch development organisation. Minenhle Ngwenya, an economic development adviser for SNV in Zimbabwe, told me more about what the forum is doing.

Ngwenya
The purpose of this forum is that it is a dialoguing forum and also a lobby and advocacy forum. So our responsibility in that is that we are the secretariat to that forum, whose mandate is to lobby on urban agriculture issues, be they related to water – access to water, access to land, health and environment, and even issues of finance and marketing. So we then relate with the urban agriculture farmers in that respect, in ensuring that there is a conducive environment for their work through influencing policy.

Bafana
What successes have you achieved in helping urban farmers?

Ngwenya
We have been able to bring together a number of organisations that are involved in urban agriculture, to have a functional forum that has got all those representative organisations. Second to that is the buy-in that has been realised with the local authority, where they realise this to be an important forum. Worth mentioning is the fact that Bulawayo City Council, through the Urban Agriculture Multi-Stakeholders Forum, is working on the finalisation of an urban agriculture policy that will guide urban agriculture, the programmes and interventions into the future. But even beyond that as well, as an expression of commitment from Bulawayo City Council, is work on what is called the City Strategic Agenda on Urban Agriculture in Bulawayo. Beyond that as well, in a number of programmes within the city of Bulawayo that have been set up as a result of deliberations of the Urban Agriculture Multi-Stakeholders Forum, through non-governmental organisations: the nutrition gardens that are in place; scaled up urban agriculture activity in individual plot holdings, and even collective pieces of land that have been allocated by Bulawayo City Council for this purpose.

Bafana
And lastly, where do you want to take urban agriculture, as members of the Multi-Stakeholders Forum?

Ngwenya
The envisaged future in this respect is that there are three products that we anticipate to bring to completion, that will guide urban agriculture into the future. A finalised City Strategic Agenda being adopted by the city fathers. A finalised urban agriculture policy, also adopted by the city fathers, and relevant by-laws that will be created in that respect to guide urban agriculture are three products that we look forward to. But in addition to that our desire is to see a sustainable forum that will continue to exist through it being institutionalised within Bulawayo City Council, in having host local organisations that will continue to undertake this work even beyond the presence of SNV.

Bafana
I was speaking to Minenhle Ngwenya who is the adviser, economic development, of SNV. End of track.

Radio interview here.