by December Ndhlovu
25 – 27 September 2022 Venue: Rooiboklaagte, Bushbuckridge
Day 1
I went to a field visit with the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) colleagues Afika and Anne, to Acornhoek RDP village to meet the Permaculture Explorers (PE’s) and visit their home gardens. We were met Stella Horgan, the director for Zingela Ulwazi, at the Centre for Women Independence (CWI). She was with Lilian Marule, coordinator for the Permaculture Explorers (PE’s) and Try Give Nxumalo who is the permaculture reacher to the PE’s. We visited about 3 home gardens that green and full of life in that heat. There are over 35 women in this RDP village that have been selected according to their poverty levels, trained, and supported by Zingela Ulwazi Trust (ZUT). There were about 20 women per training and the permaculture course is a yearlong training. All of them have home gardens and roof-top rainwater harvesting systems built in their yards by Zingela Ulwazi Trust (ZUT).
They plant vegetables and some herbs which they sell to someone in Hoedspruit who makes tinctures and oils from these herbs. These women can make their own dish washing soap, moringa juice and tea. They can produce body soap from African Potato plant, and they intend learning more.
They had a Stokvel that they established to save their profit they make from selling surplus vegetables and herbs to the community. The Stokvel collapsed during COVID-19 hard lock down. On the other hand, the home gardens helped them a lot during the COVID-19 lock down and they helped their neighbours and community selling fresh healthy vegetables when there was shortage of food.
In one of the gardens, we visited in the RDP village
The home gardens have made a big difference in the lives of the PE’s since they started, and this has enabled them to sell surplus vegetables to the community. Most of the PE’s are chronic to different ailments and they all have improved health-wise.
Day 2 -The Agroecology workshop happened in Rooiboklaagte in a communal garden. It was attended by about 25 people. There were youths and traditional health practitioners (THP’s) amongst others. The workshop was attended by PEs from RDP village and Rooiboklaagte batch, members of MPWC (Highveld and Lowvel d) and a Project manager from Zingela Ulwazi Trust (ZUT). This communal garden is managed by Mr Try Give Nxumalo (PE’s teacher) and his wife Suzan who was part of the group that graduated from Rooiboklaagte.
Nxumalo also runs and manage many school gardens that he helped establish around Bushbuckridge. They are now also feeding primary school children from the garden every weekday. Children pass by the garden after school and eat before they go home.
Different types of farming methods
There are different farming methods that are by farmers to produce their products. There is Commercial Agriculture, Agroecology, Permaculture, Subsistence farming and Organic farming, amongst others. There are many different approaches to farming for different reasons. Commercial farming is mainly for profiting making; hence they use chemical fertilizers to speed up growth and yield more harvest. Agroecology, Permaculture, Subsistence farming and Organic farming are similar in their approach to farming. PE’s are using the permaculture approach to farming.
Impacts of Climate Change on food security and WHY farmers should care about Agroecology
It is a known fact that South Africa has a challenge of food insecurity as we have noticed the during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate change and global warming will have serious consequences in our food supply chain because there will be many challenges to grow food like drought, floods and extreme cold. Climate change changes weather patterns and behavior and therefore make it difficult for plants to survive. With climate change, it is either extreme rain (floods), drought or extreme cold and the weather patterns are turned up-side down and therefore make it impossible to grow anything or it will need one to be able to build weatherproof gardens which would be very expensive. Food shortage will lead to high food prices that most people might not afford.
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic could well be linked to the changing climate conditions that we are facing as a world. If climate change persists, it will mean that there will be less food available, and it will be very expensive hence we encourage people to develop and establish home gardens to plant their own preferred food. Agroecology allows us to use our soil sustainably for a very long time because we use organic material to mulch and for compost. Therefore, establishment of agroecology farms would indeed improve the chances of having food because the method is sustainable and natural.
Commissions
Anne and Afika from Cape Town presents the areas they work in
The participants were divided into areas they come from and were all asked to map their areas indicating what is in that area. There were the PE’s group, Bushbuckridge group, Highveld group and Nkomazi. My colleagues from Cape Town also mapped the area they work in. The mapping exercise was interesting to see that water shortage is a challenge across the whole country.
Nkomazi presenting its map
It was clear from the presentations that water shortage cuts through all presenters. Water security is a serious challenge that we are facing as a nation and climate change is making it worse. The water security challenges are more serious than what our municipalities display. The water downstream flow is badly affected in Bushbuckridge and MPWC have always believed that the gum trees planted on the Maiepskop Mountain are largely to blame for the decease. Coincidentally, with regard to Bushbuckridge, there was a decision that was taken in 2000 to strategically clear the gum and pine trees from the escarpment in Bushbuckridge to release more water for the outskirts of Bushbuckridge. Just imagine that the decision was taken over 20 years back and the reason was to improve water availability in Bushbuckridge.
Day 3 - We visited home gardens in Masana village, and the difference was immediate, the gardens here are not secured with fence like the one for the PE’s in RDP and Rooiboklaagte. It is very difficult to plant something if you don’t have fencing to ward off chickens, goats, and cattle from
Most people are not able to do gardening because they don’t have fence to secure the gardens. Without fencing there is nothing one can get because everything will be destroyed by domestic animals. It is very necessary to fortify your home garden if you stay in this village. Unlike the PE’s in the RDP and Rooiboklaagte, they don’t’ have problems of goats and cattle as much as we have here, they only have chicken problem. Chicken are the most problematic of them all because they are always there every day.