From hand outs to green fingers with Durban North NPO
The ‘mini farm’ package consists of eight compost bags with various regenerative seedlings planted directly into the bags.
VEGETABLE gardens are springing up in Bhambayi after Durban North based organisation, Ubuntu Army launched Ubuntu Farms as the ‘next step’ from delivering food hampers to those affected by the Covid-19 lockdown. Ubuntu Farms, aims to go from ‘giving to growing’ by empowering people to grow their own vegetables.
Ubuntu Army founder Clint Mclean is developing the Ubuntu Farm mini farms with his son, Fin McLean, a sustainable development student. Seedlings are planted directly into compost bags to create a thriving ‘farm’.
“We have a really good relationship with a young farmer in Eshowe and he’s providing us with 2000-3000 seedlings at a time. Compost or fertile soil is our next challenge. Anyone is capable of growing seedlings, but compost allows plants to thrive. We bought a lot of amazing soil from the SPCA. It’s such fertile soil that we are growing successfully in it and it’s working really well,” he said.
Also read: ‘Compassion grows community,’ says Durban North NPO
“Planting directly into the earth is what we’d like to see, where people have got land, and where the soil is fertile, but a lot of the time, the people who really need these gardens don’t have the space and the soil isn’t fertile where they live. Enriching soil becomes really important,” added McLean.
Bhambayi resident, Gertrude Mxinwa said the vegetable garden is helping her to provide for her children and grandchildren.
“I made a salad with the red and green lettuce from my garden and I cooked a curry dish with the spinach. The garden is helping me because now I have something to cook and eat other than just phutu. I have five sons and only one of them gets a SASSA grant. The rest are unemployed,” she said.
Also read: Durban North NPO goes from giving to growing with ‘mini farms’
McLean hopes to fine tune the project so it is easily adapted for other communities.
“We want to create a system that’s easily replicated, all we need to do is find farmers and foster a sustainable culture. We are working on designing a system that can be applied everywhere,” he said.
The project was designed with refugees in mind, to allow them to grow food in the confined living spaces of the inner city. “We are delivering mini farms to about 20 refugees in the Point Road area as well as a community in Inchanga,” concluded Clint.
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