The state of unemployment and urban food security challenges in South Africa have created the need for innovative solutions, such as collaborative community gardens. Nowhere is this being more clearly demonstrated than by Balwin, African Women in Agriculture (AWiA), Thembalami (BAT) Community Garden in Lombardy East.
The BAT project aims to secure the future of food by fostering the establishment of community and urban vertical vegetable gardens for beneficiaries from Alexandra. Thus, building a network of new female community farmers and shortening food miles.
The garden is located on the premises of Rand Aid Association’s Thembalami Care Centre and is sponsored by Balwin Properties and is ideally located for beneficiaries from Alexandra and aims to feed the community and empower women to improve their lives through agricultural entrepreneurship (agripreneurship).
Ten women were carefully selected from Alexandra as beneficiaries of the project, which was launched in mid-February this year. The garden provides the agripreneurs with access to a physical garden that is used for capacity-building and practical learning.
In response to the low participation of African women in agriculture, AWiA was founded as a non-profit company in May 2018, to develop, promote and support women agripreneurs.
“Women in South Africa and beyond have limited access to finance; agricultural inputs, such as seeds; farming implements and transport. They are impacted by a lack of agricultural skills and infrastructure, and the majority of them are involved in small-scale farming due to limited resources,” said AWiA’s finance director Agnes Hove.
“AWiA thus runs several developmental initiatives to build the capacity of women in this male-dominated industry,” she added.
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