Rooftop garden to enhance food security

22nd August 2014

By: Jonathan Rodin

  

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Social housing provider the Johannesburg Housing Company (JHC) launched another sustainability garden, the Lake Success Food Garden, in Hillbrow, in June.

The JHC has five similar projects in Hillbrow, Joubert Park, Troyeville, Newtown and Fordsburg, in Johannesburg, comprising rooftop gardens and ground gardens. Spinach, beetroot, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, beans and rosemary are grown on these rooftops, which provide the food supply for the tenants.

Wholly owned subsidiary of JHC, Makhulong a Matala, together with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and nonprofit organisation Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA), has launched two successful rooftop food gardens, with Lake Success being the third, notes JDA marketing manager Susan Monyai.

“Community involvement in these initiatives has instilled a sense of pride among the residents who live in the city,” adds JHC CEO Elize Stroebel.

She explains that a sustainability plan has been laid out to maintain the food garden. “The tenants who volunteered to get involved in the project have been trained to understand, start and manage an organic food garden,” she says, explaining that the garden aims to improve the levels of household food security while also providing for the cultivation of medicinal herbs on a small scale.

The sustainability plan entails tenants growing their seedlings from harvested seeds to limit the cost of buying ready-grown seedlings.

It also details how tenants can use available resources, such as wastewater or harvested rainwater, to water the gardens. Tenants are introduced to basic business skills so they can eventually earn an income from the project.

FTFA volunteer project facilitator Ewald Viljoen says the Lake Success project and other similar programmes have broadened the horizons of locals by teaching them new ways of obtaining food.

Resilient City
Stroebel explains that, through its projects, the JHC supports Johannesburg’s six main principles for a sustainable city – eradicating poverty, building and growing an inclusive economy and sustainable human settlements, ensuring resource security and environmental sustainability, achieving social inclusion through support and enablement, and promoting good governance.

In line with achieving the ideal of a resilient city as contained in the City of Johannesburg’s 2040 growth and development strategy (GDS), the JDA supports the development of rooftop gardens to improve the level of food security in the Johannesburg inner city and acknowledges that urban agriculture forms an important part of food security provision, says Monyai.

“The GDS outreach process is of great importance in building a collective and shared vision for the future of Johannesburg,” according to the City of Johannesburg’s website.

Meanwhile, the JDA’s corporate social investment programme is also considering projects that are based on long-term social and environmental impact, she says.

“It aims to transform society by assisting in eradicating inequality and poverty; it also aims to create a better life for all through safe and sustainable socioeconomic opportunities,” Monyai adds.

“We are confident that this initiative will prosper, as it has at other JHC rooftop gardens,” concludes Stroebel.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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