Temitope Mayegun has made a name in Nigeria selling natural oils from fruits, seeds and vegetables, but it was a greasy path to follow.



From stock trading to skincare, in the last four years, Temitope Mayegun has built a company that sells what she calls “natural skincare products” but to achieve that, she first needed to change the mindset of Nigerians.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“I got divine inspiration,” she says, “to start a company that will enrich lives and inspire a healthier and happier world.” The founder and CEO of Avila Naturalle in Nigeria felt she needed to first educate people about the toxic and unsafe chemicals they were hitherto using for bleaching and skin whitening, considering how sought-after they are in Nigeria.



The former stock broker was also frustrated she couldn’t find an all-natural skin product without bleaching or whitening ingredients harmful to the skin, so she created her own.



Today, from a humble start in 2017, her company retails over 350 products in the skincare division, 90 products in the food division and 10 products in the water and drinks division.



But it took a lot of ground work and research to start with.



“I saw that many people believe your skincare product should enhance or change your skin color,” recalls Mayegun.



With a degree in accounting from the University of Lagos as well as an International Masters in Business Administration from Eaton Business School; and having done a Harvard Business School Executive Leadership course, Mayegun’s most valuable qualification would prove to be a diploma she obtained in an organic and natural skin school in London.



Equipped with the knowledge of the goodness of natural products, Mayegun set out on the cumbersome path of changing perceptions.



“It was difficult because a lot of people were not ready to change their bleaching and whitening products. So, we did not follow the crowd even though there was pressure to go into whitening and pressure to create products that will let customers bleach their skin,” says Mayegun.



To combat stereotypes, Mayegun knew she had to create a unique product. She began with 30,000 units of pure coconut oil.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I had to create campaigns to educate the public on the importance of using natural products.”</blockquote>



“At the time, there was no pure coconut oil on the market. Most of them were watered down with other edible oils which reduces the quality. I had to create campaigns to educate the public on the importance of using natural products and sell them on the superior quality of our products.”



The hard work paid off and Mayegun sold out her 30,000 units, which was two cartons of pure coconut oil, in just two days. It was time to expand her business and with that, she needed to find capital.



“I started asking friends for a loan but I could not raise the money. I went to microfinance companies looking for a $10,000-loan and they said I needed collateral which I didn’t have.



“There were times when I worked between 17 and 21 hours a day. I would be trying to convince people on why they should use coconut oil for their skin. I knew people were not ready for natural products but I kept pushing and after a while, I got a lot of people asking for coconut oil and it was not easy meeting the demand,” says Mayegun.



Soon, word got out and the distributors came calling. Today, Avila Naturalle offers multiple natural essential oils made from carrots, avocado, hibiscus and mustard.



“When people saw our mustard oil, they were shocked that there were these oils in Nigeria. So, they bought in bulk to resell. We were the first to produce essential oils in Nigeria. People were asking if we bought them from abroad and dilute it with other products which was the norm. We are the only company that sells 100% pure natural oils from fruits and seeds.”



The sizeable beauty and personal care market in Nigeria is what Mayegun has sets her sights on.



“To make this happen we have created a multi-channel natural body care and household brand with multiple product lines, which combines a dynamic distribution network with a retail strategy as well as e-commerce,” she says, also referring to changing consumer habits in the post-Covid world.



With just $100 and a burgeoning global supply chain network, Mayegun has built a million-dollar company manufacturing natural body and hair care products and foods in Africa.

temitope mayegun

The Natural Route To Business Success

Geologist-turned-entrepreneur Brad Meiring uses an online delivery service in South Africa to get people to reconnect with their food.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Pile of empty wooden crates are ready for packaging, stacked up in a scullery. As the morning mist dissipates in the lawn, a pick-up van parks near the doorway.



There is an enterprising hustle and bustle between the van
and the kitchen door. Men hurriedly create an impromptu conveyor belt
offloading supplies from the van into the scullery.



The daily work rituals progress, and Brad Meiring, the 37-year-old founder of Munching Mongoose, casually engages in a conversation with the supplier. 



From starting his business with 12 boxes, the online
delivery service established in 2014, now dispatches about 150 boxes a week in
Johannesburg.



Meiring sells customizable grocery boxes filled with organic
produce, from fruits and vegetables to staple foods such as milk, cheese and
breads. His business has a turnover of R450,000 ($31, 241) a month.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/11/the-businesses-of-the-future-20-new-wealth-creators-on-the-african-continent/" target="_blank">Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent</a>



It was a conversation at a dinner with a friend in Nelspruit
that planted the seed of opportunity. It turned him from geologist to
entrepreneur. 



As a geologist, he had been against the commercial
exploitation of the environment. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



“In geology, it is about how we can put a big hole in the
ground to make us some money. That didn’t sit well with me and that is why I
geared away [from it]. You are very much in touch with the ground and so is
farming. I suppose you could link the two. When I shifted from geology, I tried
to get into the environmental field using that knowledge,” the entrepreneur
says.



Operating from a pomegranate farm, in the picturesque rural
area of Muldersdrift, 27 kilometers from Johannesburg, the calm of the place is
an obvious contrast to the hustle and bustle in the economic hub of big city
Johannesburg. 



It is a contrast he sees changing with time, as people have
become more open-minded to experimenting with healthier options, his packaged
organic food one of them.



“There are guys farming on rooftops, finding small plots of
land in and amongst the buildings. There are guys using vertical walls to grow
so they are turning the concrete jungle into farm scapes.&nbsp; 



“There is a whole farm movement where guys are just
maximizing the space they have to make their produce. As the awareness grows,
hopefully, the fast food lines will also start considering the produce they use
to make food. This will give more options,” he says. 



A grey hatchback pulls into the driveway; we look on as a
man unloads two bags from his boot and makes his way to the kitchen. 



“We have built amazing relationships with the suppliers and farmers. The deeper you go, you can just see the networks of guys who are just hustling. There is value far beyond what we see in the shops,” he says.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2019/03/15/local-solutions-can-boost-healthier-food-choices-in-south-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa (opens in a new tab)">Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa</a>



Focused on delivering boxes in Johannesburg, the business
has customers varying from the high-end to the health-conscious. 



According to Meiring, high-end consumers are more accustomed
to purchasing the bigger boxes because it is in line with their budget whereas
health-conscious and dual-income families opt for more affordable options.



Grocery boxes range from R499 ($34) to R799 ($55) with
various nutritional options. 



Through his Munching Mongoose business model, he aims to
create a difference. 



“For us, where the real passion lies is being able to play
our small part in getting families around the table. Getting people to
reconnect with the food they eat. More importantly, it is to build
relationships. It sounds silly, but if you ask anyone, some of their best
memories are around the table,” he says. 



Nudged by his love for family, relationships have become a
core value he practices in the corporate space. 



“Relationships are the business. Without them and without
the people doing the hard graft and toiling, we wouldn’t have a business. I am
not a farmer or artisan. Even down to the team; we built it slowly,” he says.



“The lucrative nature is based on who is behind the wheel
and how you can run it as a business. The opportunities are big, and there is a
big global mind-shift towards being more environmentally conscious, towards
health and to understanding relationships and where your food comes from. There
are a lot more people questioning and not just accepting what is given to them
on the shelves. You can’t just greenwash.” 



His subscription-based model is an experience different from
grocery-shopping.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="925" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40419" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring1.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring1-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring1-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring1-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption> Employees at Munching Mongoose. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



“Organic produce is still expensive. Small farmers have
limited access to resources, and that goes to the economies of scale,” he says.




This results in higher costs to sell and purchase
naturally-produced foods and so it’s expensive and inaccessible to the
lower-income markets. 



Although the organic food market mostly targets high-end
consumers who have the means, every business should be open to trends in
various markets. 



Meiring argues that African markets differ from developed
regions in the lack of infrastructure and access to support from local
government. 



“Digital adaptions for marketing and transactions between
the consumer is a priority,” says Sigqibo Nonhonho, who manages the digital
aspects of Munching Mongoose. 



“There are a lot of systems that you have to come to grips
with. Being able to understand the back-end of the website, what the customers
will be seeing and the numbers (interactions) behind that. 



“Having an IT background allowed me to understand that
quicker. In IT, being organized is something that you to do, and in food, you
have to do that too. In food, there is more freedom, you can be more creative
and design your solutions,” Nonhonho says. 



Gracious Nhloko, who has taken it upon herself to farm
organic produce in her free time, administers the daily operations, and she
says Wednesdays are her favorite day of the week because suppliers are moving
in and out as they deliver the fresh produce.



“When different suppliers are bringing their fresh produce,
just looking at those vegetables, sometimes, looking at the sizes of some of
the produce is so amazing… It just brings me joy,” she says.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="924" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40420" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring2.png 924w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring2-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring2-600x400.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brad-Meiring2-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" /><figcaption> Gracious Nhloko. Picture: Gypseenia Lion</figcaption></figure>



Meiring says that defining organic in South Africa is a grey
area that has not been legislated properly. 



At times, he has to cross-check that suppliers are being
truthful. 



The term ‘organic’ is often used in a broader sense and that
is a complex issue that needs to be dealt with caution.&nbsp; 



“In fact, often people have a negative perception when they
see something marketed as organic because it is considered as someone just
using [the label] organic,” he says. 



Moving at a gradual pace towards expansion, for Meiring,
ensures that quality and sustainability remain beneficial for all parties
involved, and sometimes this means problem-solving is done on the spot. 



“We are looking at other product lines. Adopting a model for
corporate and office spaces and bringing in something for families… There are
the meal kits for companies that are doing well globally but there are good
examples in South Africa. 



“I love the journey of starting people back in the kitchen,
and we hope that we can evolve people’s mind-sets to get them to want the fresh
produce. It is about expansion in a way that is, excusing the pun, organic,” he
says. 



“Being organic in the concrete jungle is a thing and it is
growing… People are changing, and others are saying they don’t want to lawn
anymore and will [instead] plant a vegetable garden.”



In due time, Meiring’s wooden crates will cross the oceans
to New Zealand as promising global ventures are also under way.

Brad-Meiring

Organic In The Concrete Jungle

Eleven villagers sit under the shade of a marula tree, in the heat of midday, deep in the KwaZulu-Natal bush in a village called Gazini. They have been up since 4AM to tell their stories in search of a small solution to a large problem.
A week before, a herd of elephants trampled through the vegetable patch. Villagers woke to see an elephant in their backyard peering through their door. The backlash has been violent and bloody &#8211; earlier this year, villagers killed an elephant and stripped it to the bone.
Gazini is a scatter of farms two kilometers from the South African border with Mozambique; electricity or cell phone reception is unheard of. The villagers here live hand-to-mouth deep in the bush.
The villagers complain the elephants emerge from the bush in the dead of night, to strike terror into their homes. The reason the elephants roam is because their home in the bush is getting smaller by the year.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Africa&#039;s eco-warriors&#039; honey trap for a mammoth problem" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EndPiY8ZrbE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Listening patiently to the villagers are two entrepreneurs, Mmabatho and Desmond Morudi, in white overalls, who believe their business can help the villagers sleep easy.
“The thing that made [the threat] clear to me was when we did a trip along the border fence. There you can see exactly where the fence has been broken and where the elephants cross over. We could see the broken poles snapped in half like twigs,” says Desmond.
The entrepreneurs believe that building 200 beehives, in a two-kilometer barrier will not only fend off the elephants but also make money. The villagers could be forgiven for being sceptical.
“I don’t think they are convinced, it’s still a test to see if it

really, really works to deter the elephants,” says Mmabatho.
“It’s [understandable] why they would believe such a large creature wouldn’t be scared of something so small,” says Desmond.
The Morudis have been working around this village since October. They start work early; the bees get aggressive as the day wears on. The hives hang on wooden poles, 10 meters apart, linked by barbed wire. If touched by an elephant, the hives swing and stir up the bees.
“So far we’ve put up a fence with 40 hives. Two hundred will be the final amount. The challenge is 200 hives is quite a stretch, it means they have to run through other villages of people who don’t even know that the project is going on. There is also the issue of leaving space for cars driving past as well as border patrols. You don’t want to cut the elephants off totally. You just want to cordon off the sensitive areas and leave behind a path.”
The buzzing beehive fence is the brainchild of Lucy King in Kenya, Head of the Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program for Save the Elephants, where she realized that elephants are scared of African honey bees and will avoid beehives at all costs. The bees sting the elephants’ soft skin, eyes, face, trunk and mouth.
The fences have an 80% success rate. They are made from local materials and are cheap, costing $150 to $500 per 100 meters, says King from her headquarters Nairobi.
The beehive fences have been so successful with human-elephant conflict (HEC), 13 countries have adopted similar projects, one of them being the Morudi’s growing business, The Village Market.
“We’ve obsessed over [King’s] manual and her work in Kenya… At the same time we were trying to find villages that we could work with. We had the skills, we had the knowledge, we needed the natural vegetation,” says Mmabatho.
In the shade of the marula tree, they have taken King’s research one step further. They want to use beehive fences as part of a R2.5-million ($180,000) dream to harvest, bottle and deliver wild, high-quality honey to suburban shopping aisles.
“In general our jars sell for R55 per 375g. Then we have Mmabatho’s baby, the raw high quality, for R75 per 375g. We aim to develop a luxury brand, bringing more orders to a premium market. We work on 35kgs per hive per harvest, which is once every three months,” says Desmond.
This means, by January, 11 bee keepers of Gazini could have yielded R49,000 ($3,500).
It’s been a long journey to this odd business for Desmond and Mmabatho. They come from modest homes in Kimberly and Pretoria.
“Our desire was to develop communities we grew up in, providing help for people and business opportunities.”
The idea was born in the home of Mmabatho’s grandfather in Winterveld, a rural town 68 kilometers northwest of Pretoria, in 2012.
“Bees would get into our ceiling and produce so much honey that the ceiling would cave in. Like every other family, we would try and smoke them out and kill them. But they would always come back,” says Mmabatho.
Instead her grandfather took the family on a beekeeping course and Mmabatho was hooked. She started her own company called Iliju Bee Farm.
Her work with Iliju Bee Farm led to Mmabatho shaking hands with ministers and members of the top 100 entrepreneurs of Europe. She also dined with Richard Branson. In 2013, Mmabatho was selected as one of the brightest young minds in South Africa, and again as one of the emerging changemakers by Spark International.
Things got even busier and Mmabatho’s husband, Desmond, left the comfort of corporate accounting to help manage the business. But success proved to be a devil in disguise. The business grew too quickly and couldn’t cope. They took on a bee expert who left a year and a half later and Iliju collapsed.
Then they started The Village Market at the end of 2014.
“As we learned more about bees, and their plight, that’s when it all came together. Lucy King’s study came after we had established Winterveld. Nora Taiga, of the Peace Foundation, now Elephant, Rhinos &amp; People (ERP), paid Mmabatho a subsistence salary of R10,000, then introduced us to the people of Gazini,” says Desmond.
“At the beginning of the year the crossings were getting quite significant. Previously it had just been bulls, but then we started seeing breeding herds coming through,” says Nonceba Lushaba, KZN Coordinator of ERP.
“From the elephant’s point of view they have realized that there are easy pickings here. It’s kind of like a naughty child who goes to pick sweets.”
In Gazini, finding the bees is half the battle. Once the hives are built, the beekeepers take the hives to their homes in Gazini and attempt to colonize them.
Bees are fussy dwellers; they need water, plenty of flowering plants, protective vegetation and far from direct sunlight. Once the bees have moved in, the keepers close the entrances at night and then transport the colony to the beehive fence. Work starts before dawn. In their bee suits they walk with the hives on their heads to this farm. It is so remote you need a 4&#215;4 to navigate a maze of bush trails to find it.
“Another important issue is researching bee diseases. Bee health is important if we want to conserve them. Research needs to keep track of these growing issues.”
Threats, like the varroa mite that attacks bees in the hive and contributes in part to colony collapse, are global concerns. This is why the couple have teamed up with the University of Pretoria (Tuks) Zoology and Entomology department’s Bee Group that will add valuable research to elephant behavior, bee repopulation and disease control.
Even though US and Europe honey bee colonies were under threat from Colony Collapse Disorder for almost ten years, the African honey bee  was safe from the impact of industrialized apiculture. This according to research by Robin Crew,  professor of Entomology and leader of the Social Insects Research Group in the University of Pretoria’s Department of Zoology and Entomology.
In Crew’s book “A World Without Bees”, the fact that Africa has the largest number of wild honey bee swarms in the world has contributed to wider genetic diversity and therefore populations are not as severely affected by diseases.
The beepocolypse, as it was called, could even be resolved with recolonization with the African honey bee because of its resilience.
Their Gazini project has even caught the eye of the African Union which granted $15,000 to the bee research at Tuks.
“It’s not just the sake of doing research for the sake of research, but using it to solve community problems. To help developed communities,” says Desmond.
On the morning of inspection, Mmabatho finds suspicious larvae in one of the hives. It turns out to be waxworm. These pests eat cocoons, pollen, the shed skins of bees, and chew through beeswax.
“We need the bees to focus all their energy on making the honey. As soon as invaders enter the hive they expend all their energy getting it out, which of course affects production,” says Desmond.
The couple believe that deforestation, pesticides and insecticides also affect the bees. They instead plant strong smelling plants and herbs, like spring onions, to discourage pests and also plant flowering vegetables like tomatoes to encourage pollination.
“We are trying to encourage our farmers to use organic methods so they don’t affect the bee populations. That is why, in addition to this, we sell veggies to markets,” says Mmabatho.
Once the honey is ready it its transported 600 kilometers to their bottling plant at the Riversands Incubation Hub that opened in September in Fourways, north of Johannesburg.
“The problem we have with honey in South Africa is a lot of it is imported. Because of important laws we need to irradiate it. You will see in the shops it will say it’s ionized by radiation in order to increase shelf life. The impact of that is that it takes away the good qualities from the honey.”
“There is also a lack of variation of honey in the market. We introduce some product differentiation;  infusing honey with lemon or cinnamon.”
Raw honey is murky and beige in color, a completely different experience from what you see in the shops.
“People are used to seeing this brown liquid here on the shelves that’s what they associate with honey. They don’t appreciate the real raw product will crystallize,” says Mmabatho.
Honey also can be used in health and beauty products and is a natural anti-inflammatory. Scrubs, moisturizers and masks can all be made from the by-product of the comb.
This is one business that is helping a tiny village sleep at night and got a couple of bright African entrepreneurs buzzing.

The Stings That  Make Elephants Fly

Wind, solar and hydro energy have all been highlighted as sources of energy that help meet Africa’s growing power needs. Ghana’s Dela Wosornu is using garbage.
Decomposing organic material, known as biomass, releases gas that can be used to create energy in the form of biofuels. In Ghana, a country with a vast amount of degradable material, it is a viable option for alternative energy.
In Ghana, energy is costly and scarce; this hinders economic growth.
Biomass, such as wood and charcoal, is Ghana’s main energy source, supplying around 60% of the total energy used in the country. Biomass resources cover about 20.8 million hectares of land mass in Ghana. Most of this land is made up of crops and plants that can be converted into solid and liquid biofuels. Wosornu, a renewable energy entrepreneur, is taking advantage of this by transferring landfill gas to energy.
He is involved in the Oti Sanitary Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project, which eliminates the emission of harmful greenhouse gases as well as the spread of disease from the waste. The project reduces the reliance on producing power from fossil fuels by producing energy from the waste that would have otherwise been buried in the landfill.
The solution is quite innovative.
When organic material, such as food waste, is buried in the landfill, it is deprived of oxygen. In this condition, the organic material will decompose and turn into methane gas. The methane will slowly be released into the atmosphere, causing global warming. The project at the Oti landfill doesn’t let this happen. They cover the landfill with soil and drill holes into it. Pipes are then inserted and the gas is sucked out into a generator which makes heat and electricity.
“It’s really a matter of just bringing pipes to where the gas has collected and pumping it out through a vacuum process and then directing that gas to a generator,” says Wosornu.
According to Wosornu, the project is the first of its kind in Ghana. As cities grow and produce more waste, the environmental impact from open dumps becomes increasingly intolerable. The conversion of dumps to engineered landfills like the Oti project is essential.
“Our solution can be applied at any landfill that has received at least 400 tons a day of municipal solid waste and is in reasonably good shape. As there are many landfills in Africa and around the world that are not capturing gas, the future for landfill gas to energy projects is bright,” says Wosornu.
Landfill gas to energy projects have underperformed relative to projected gas and power output. Bearing this in mind, the projected output of the Oti project has been discounted by 70% so that its actual output will meet or exceed the projected output. The Renewable Energy Act in Ghana ensures that there are set prices for each class of renewable energy. It also offers an opportunity to redirect future investments into green energy.
The challenge for Wosornu, is finding reliable buyers for the project’s output. The high cost of doing business in Africa also makes the development costs of these projects higher than the rest of the world.
“There is no doubt that, if properly exploited, renewable energy resources in Africa can make a significant contribution to the continent’s energy supply. In particular, the potential of biofuels on the continent is huge. Within the context of the current financial crisis, stakeholders including policy makers, international partners and the UN should lead the debate on and collectively seek strategies for scaling up renewable energy use so as to increase access to energy and enhance energy security among the many potential benefits of these technologies,” says Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Wosornu is playing his part.

Full Steam Ahead

From Junk To Power

Imagine if the next time you needed to toss together a salad, spice up a meal or garnish an after-dinner treat, you only went as far as your balcony, rooftop or garden to source the ingredients. If you are a city-dweller in sub-Saharan Africa, that is more possible than you think.
Urban farming is mushrooming on the continent, almost as quickly as the rate at which people are moving into cities. Around 40% of the African population (around 375 million people) are metropolitan residents and that number will grow to 60% by 2050. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 150 million of those people grow their own food.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3476" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/shutterstock_33409384-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />
A handful of them are hipsters who nurture herb gardens while practising yoga and preaching about organic eating and low carbon footprints. Hundreds of thousands more are after more than just a feel-good factor. Just as urban farming became part of the recovery after the First World War and is being used by Cubans to combat crippling sanctions, in Africa it is solving some of society’s most severe problems. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most under-nourished region and is rife with hunger and unemployment.
The FAO cited Malawi, Cameroon and Ghana, where up to 50% of households have vegetable gardens, as three countries with successful urban farming programs. South Africa is not far behind, with steps being taken to encourage urban farming in a country where around 20% of the population does not know where their next meal is coming from.
“Urban agriculture projects strive to reduce food security and create economic upliftment. Growing food in the backyard of your shack can be the difference between going hungry and having a healthy meal on the table for your family,” says Catherine Nicks, the Project Manager of Tyisa Nabanye, a non-profit urban agriculture organization which runs a farm on the slopes of Signal Hill in Cape Town.
Tyisa Nabanye occupies land on ERF 81, one of the original sites of agriculture in the Cape that dates back to the 1700s. Although it is historically farmland, these days it is not an ideal place to grow crops. While the clay soil remains nutrient rich, the area is often lashed by heavy rains and strong winds which destroy a harvest overnight. But Nicks and a team of seven others have found a way of working with the elements instead of fighting them through an ideology of permaculture.
“We practice companion planting in our garden, where certain vegetables are planted together with certain herbs and play different roles. Some plants feed or fix nutrients in the soil, others repel or attract insects that perform specific functions,” says Nicks.
“We find that kale and spinach do well in our garden, partly because they need little attention and they grow year round. And partly because they sell well, people cannot get enough of the very limited kale in the city.”
Kale is the new ‘it’ food and is often used in green juice where it is blended with spinach, cucumber and apple to create a healthy brew. One-Juice, a company that specializes in selling these drinks, buys some of its kale directly from Tyisa Nabanye. By doing that, they have created a direct connection between customers that are conscious of where their food comes from and the producers who supply that food.
People who drink One-Juice’s products only have to ask where the raw materials come from to be directed to Tyisa Nabanye. There they are welcome to see for themselves how the crops are grown. Nicks meets many of them personally, answers questions, introduces them to the gardeners and invites them to
come back.
“Urban farming is largely about reducing the distance between farm and fork, about increasing ones understanding about where our food comes from. We now know the name of our farmer as well as our doctor,” says Nicks.
“It’s about knowing what a gooseberry looks like before it has been dehusked, washed and placed on a layer of bubble wrap in a plastic container, what the leaf of a watermelon plant looks like and how tall a tomato plant can grow. We use our garden to share our knowledge about where our food comes from and how we can be more sustainable.”
But it’s not as simple as that. The 8.2–hectares, of which Tyisa Nabanye does not even occupy a tenth, is owned by the South African National Defence Force and run by the Department of Public Works. The farm does not have a lease to operate and there are constant bureaucratic battles to overcome, despite a policy in place which promotes urban farming.
In June 2007, the City of Cape Town drafted an urban agriculture policy in which stated its vision to create a ‘prosperous and growing urban agriculture sector,’ which would center on poverty alleviation and job creation. By encouraging agriculture in the city, the government hoped to take steps to increase food security and provide people with a sustainable income source.
More than five years after the document was tabled, the city reached an agreement with the Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF) to turn a disused bowling green into a bowl of greens, literally. The farm uses that phrase as its slogan now. It was the city’s first pop-culture urban farm and quickly captured the attention of Capetonians because it was promoted as a community space.
OZCF connected itself to locals through a weekly market which sold fresh vegetables grown on the farm and grew to include a variety other stalls. It became the place to be on a Saturday morning for socializing, sipping on fair-trade coffee or craft beer or even trying a hand at farming as one of the OZCF volunteers. But the quaintness did not last.
The farm is situated on a heritage site and city officials require certain safety requirements to be met to accommodate the foot traffic and a proper market licence to trade. In early December, news broke that the market would stop until those boxes were ticked and the young and beautiful were outraged. They had grown to think of OZCF as a public property and exerted enough pressure to move the market to the official residence of the province’s Premier, Helen Zille, from where it continues to operate from.
The fracas over OZCF remains unresolved but it achieved something the community wanted most; it created awareness. Residents cared enough about where their food was coming from to go to where it was being grown. They watch it flower and flourish, buy it unwashed and unpackaged, cook it themselves, eat it and share it with others. If that sentiment lasts, urban farming will continue growing in Africa and could become as commercially viable as it in Beijing, where half the vegetables consumed in the city are in grown in urban farms.
With that in mind, go on and grow
a little.

Tag: Organic

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Natural Route To Business Success

Organic In The Concrete Jungle

The Stings That Make Elephants Fly

Full Steam Ahead

From Junk To Power

Farming Coming To A Town Near You