Urban food garden in Bellville: transforming lives through sustainable agriculture and job creation

Working in The Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s urban food garden equips individuals with the skills necessary to grow food in urban areas so that they can take these skills home and start their own garden, said Monique Muller, Project Manager at the Greater Tygerberg Partnership. (Photo: Abigail Baard)

By Abigail Baard

17 Dec 2024

Urban food gardens not only supply food to the communities in which they are situated, they also help tackle unemployment by creating job opportunities. The Life Changing Garden in Bellville reveals the impact urban food gardens can have on a community.

The Life Changing Garden is an urban food garden located in the heart of Bellville. It was designed to provide job and rehabilitation opportunities, to feed soup kitchens and to provide access to sustainable food sources, Warren Hewitt told Daily Maverick. Hewitt is the Chief Executive Officer at The Greater Tygerberg Partnership, a non-for-profit company that implements programmes that are focused on the urban regeneration of Bellville and social development of the area. The urban food garden is a result of one of the Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s programmes.

The garden had been successful in its goals, creating multiple jobs, feeding thousands of people, becoming a sustainable source of food for multiple people, and selling produce to the local community, said Hewitt.

The garden produced organic vegetables with its own organic compost, which was made by the programme’s composting team, Hassan Nzovu told Daily Maverick. Nzovu is the urban food garden supervisor. The garden produced spinach, beetroot, carrots, green beans, broad beans, onions, green peppers, tomatoes and kale, said Nzovu.

A total of 20% of the garden’s produce was allocated to the MES Safe Space and soup kitchen, which was located on the same property as the garden, said Monique Muller, the project manager at the Greater Tygerberg Partnership. The partnership works with MES, a non-profit organisation that works with previously homeless individuals and helps them find employment.

The Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s Waste to Resource Centre provides many people with employment opportunities by hiring waste pickers to collect recyclable material from surrounding businesses in Bellville. (Photo: Abigail Baard)

The Greater Tygerberg Partnership employed individuals from MES’s programme and integrated them into its waste to resource centre, its organic collections programme, its urban food garden and its composting project, said Muller.

The other 80% of the garden’s produce was sold at markets in the area and through a Facebook page, said Muller.

“The quality of the vegetables that come out of the garden is really amazing,” she said.

Opportunities

Not only does The Life Changing Garden provide food for those in the area, it also provides employment opportunities to those who were previously homeless.

Langanani Muleyo, the site manager, found himself homeless after moving from Johannesburg to Cape Town to find work. Muleyo is originally from Limpopo, but there was no work there, he said.

“When you finish your matric you are hopeless,” he said. After school most people left Limpopo to look for a job.

After moving to Johannesburg in search of employment, things didn’t work out for Muleyo so he decided to move to Cape Town to start something new. He didn’t know anyone in Cape Town and eventually ended up at the MES shelter in Bellville.

“I was literally homeless,” he said. He was scared when he had to sleep on the street alone, Muleyo recalled.

'The quality of the vegetables that come out of the garden is really amazing,' said Monique Muller, Project Manager at the Greater Tygerberg Partnership. (Photo: Abigail Baard)

After he started working at God Restores our World (Grow) and the Greater Tygerberg Partnership began to see potential in him, he was eventually appointed as supervisor over the partnership’s waste to resources centre, he said.

The Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s urban food garden, organic waste programme and composting department all developed from the waste to resources centre, which hires waste pickers to collect recycling material from businesses in the area.

At its waste to resource centre the Greater Tygerberg Partnership currently employs 20 waste pickers, with eight being on its payroll and 16 being part of the Expanded Public Works Programme, said Muller.

When Muleyo first started working at the waste to resource centre he pushed trolleys and picked up recyclable materials. He is now the site manager and oversees all the Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s programmes at the waste to resource centre.

The site provided many with employment opportunities and the chance to earn something, and gave people the opportunity to get back on their feet, said Muleyo.

“It is so fulfilling that today I am able to do the same that was done to me and give somebody else an opportunity,” he said.

Furthermore, the garden acted as a rehabilitation space, said Nzovu. Many people who work at the urban food garden come from a drug-related background, and it helped keep them busy and gave them hope, said Muller.

Solutions

Most municipalities and those in government did recognise the importance of food systems, according to Hewitt. Poverty and the lack of access to adequate food sources was spoken about on national, provincial and municipal levels, according to Hewitt. However the implementation of solutions did not always happen at a state-government level, he said.

Working in The Greater Tygerberg Partnership’s urban food garden equipped people with the necessary skills to grow food in urban areas so that they could take these skills home and start their own gardens, said Monique Muller, Project Manager at the Greater Tygerberg Partnership. (Photo: Abigail Baard)

Those at the government level mostly supported or implemented regulations that supported solutions, said Hewitt, yet these solutions needed to take place on the ground. This was where NGOs and non-for-profit companies and organisations stepped in to help boost food accessibility, said Hewitt.

Establishing partnerships between NGOs and the government as well as public-private partnerships was crucial to getting these food systems into communities, said Hewitt.

NGO partnerships working to make a difference

The Greater Tygerberg Partnership had a multi-layered partnership with the AfriFOODLinks project, which was coordinated by Local Governments for Sustainability Africa, which had partnered with the Greater Tygerberg Partnership on a number of programmes, said Hewitt.

Read More: Cities ‘play crucial role’ in transforming ‘increasingly relevant’ urban food systems’, say experts

The AfriFOODLinks project aimed to “transform urban food environments through real-world sociotechnical experiments across African cities”, Rirhandzu Marivate told Daily Maverick. Marivate is the programme manager at the South African Food & Farming Trust and project lead for AfriFOODLinks’s pilot interventions for informal food traders in Langa and Bellville.

Bellville was known for its “vibrant pan-African food culture and role as a transport hub” and the pilot interventions in Bellville were focused on improving waste management systems, public safety, and health, she said.

“Partnering with the Greater Tygerberg Partnership, the project is piloting a market management model through the lens of waste management, trader capacity development and market events,” said Marivate.

“This approach seeks to foster community cohesion, celebrate Bellville’s cultural diversity, and build confidence in the City to manage such a diverse food environment.” DM

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NGO partnerships working to make a difference