Farming with ActionSA holds roadshow
“What we really did with this road show was to identify areas and townships where levels of poverty and youth unemployment are high."
ActionSA councillors in the City of Johannesburg, Mpumi Edwards and Ayanda Mchunu embarked on a massive roadshow across various townships over the weekend.
The road show is part of the Let’s work the soil project headed by the duo to promote urban farming and tackle food security.
The roadshow kicked off in Orange Farm and made four stops- concluding at Dobsonville, Soweto where they engaged with local and emerging farmers.
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The project which was launched early this year is aimed at mentoring and giving support to emerging organisations and communities that are starting out to farm to promote food security in urban areas.
“What we really did with this road show was to identify areas and townships where levels of poverty and youth unemployment are high.
“The roadshow is to understand what are their needs, share ideas, challenges in the industry and how we can support them and donate seedlings,” Edwards explained.
The roadshow will focus on identified areas that already have established or ventured into sustainable farming initiatives in the City that will tackle high levels of unemployment and poverty.
The project hopes to achieve this through turning open velds and dumping spaces across South African townships into food gardens.
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“We are promoting these spaces being used to the benefit of our people. A lot of these communities dump rubble in spaces that could turn into food gardens and also bring income.
“We have a lot of emerging farmers from all provinces that are in need of the training and assistance that this project aims to give,” continued Edwards.
The project also puts an emphasis on communities to get into backyard farming and secure vacant spaces that belong to the City and invite the youth into the agriculture space.
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The party will link support towards emerging and seasoned farmers with industry experts as part of its long term objectives of ensuring continuous training and mentoring for farmers.
“We are planning collaborations with private NGOs in the space. But we have a database of fully fledged commercial farmers and experienced farmers that we will be turning to for their experience and knowledge.
We will be having training programmes targeted to specific areas of farming,” the duo told the publication.
The roadshow will move to various other locations during the next leg planned for December 2.
