Over 700 backyard food gardens have been established in the wider Stellenbosch area over the past year. This comes after Stellenbosch Municipality awarded a grant to the South African Institute of Entrepreneurship (SAIE) to fund the Food Garden Project, said Ernest Boateng, business development manager for SAIE.
The grant was awarded to the project for the 2023/2024 financial year, according to Stellenbosch Municipality spokesperson Stuart Grobbelaar.
“[…] Each year, our municipality allocates funding to various organisations through our grant-in-aid (GiA) policy. This opportunity is available to all non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), non-profit organisations (NPOs), non-profit companies (NPCs),” said Grobbelaar.
Food for a family
The project runs in Pniel, Kayamandi, De Novo, Languedoc, Mandela City and other smaller communities within rural Stellenbosch, said Boateng.
The aim of the Food Garden Project, facilitated by Khanyisa Xaba from SAIE, is to enable residents to establish and maintain backyard gardens that provide healthy food to families, according to Boateng. The SAIE cites food security and entrepreneurship development as some of their biggest focus areas.
Once participants of the project can successfully maintain their backyard gardens for three to four harvests, they receive teamwork and corporate training in order to promote entrepreneurship and collaboration within the communities, said Boateng.
“This project chases hunger from the people who [are] not working, because once the vegetables [are] ready, we go to harvest and sell to people so that we can get money to put something on the table,” said Mthuthuzeli Gqibelo, Kayamandi resident.
Food for a community
“We expect [the participants in the Food Garden Project] to, from community to community, come together and then actually form a unit and establish community gardens,” said Boateng.
The project does not target specific demographics, and saw large interest from women, pensioners, and young people, according to Boateng.
Only six wards were intended to be part of the project, but it was expanded to include rural communities like Klapmuts, as ward councillors there sought to tackle food insecurity in their own communities, according to Boateng.
“The project offered many benefits. Our members were provided with gardening equipment, vegetable plants, and compost. It helped our members a lot to start our own vegetable gardens and make a success of it, as equipment and plants are expensive and we are pensioners,” said Desmond Dreyer, a senior citizen from Pniel who participates in the Food Garden Project.
“It is a perfect source of food. It is appreciated by the community,” said Nomazostho Makasi, a participant in the Food Garden Project from Kayamandi.
