November News

IN THIS EDITIONWelcome

With the World Food Programme being announced as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, World Food Day celebrated recently on 16 October and the razor-sharp focus COVID-19 has brought to food insecurity in South Africa, we wanted to highlight some success stories that are disrupting the current food system.

The University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Change estimates as much as 34% of our population went to bed hungry during South Africa’s lockdown. Professor Kate Alexander, the author of the research, commented that the deputy director of the Department of Social Development told parliament that roughly 50% of the South African population is food insecure.

Food security starts with small steps….

Ocean View Organics, Cape Town, Western Cape

In December 2019 Neighbourhood Farm, with help of the community, established an agricultural training hub in Ocean View, South Peninsula, South Africa. By February 2020, ten members from the community completed their training as agri-entrepreneurs. The group, rebranded as Ocean View Organic Farmers aka the Kos Gangsters, is under ownership of local community members and has taken full responsibility for the farm and its productions. The farm is situated on the Ocean View high school grounds and is a neighbour to Communities Wellness Solutions. The on-site bakery using a wood-fired oven has baked more than 13 500 loaves of bread since the start of  lockdown and donated more than 7 000 to local NGOs and centres that care for the frail, the disabled and the vulnerable. The farm has donated food to local soup kitchens and set up community gardens at the mosque and police station, as well as smaller planter box gardens at various places. The Hoenderhok Cafe plans to open a Pay as You Can day at the cafe in 2021.  Visit them on Facebook

Growing food is a political act –
it speaks to one’s ethics, one’s sense of responsibility for the health of people, animals and the Earth and one’s obligation to ensure that we leave behind us a better world than the one we inherited

Stefanie Swanepoel, OV Organics Co-op Manager
& Mycelium co-founder

Grow Nolukhanyo, Bathurst, Eastern Cape

Bathurst is a small rural community with few employment or business opportunities. Food security is a massive problem. Yet, our climate is perfect for growing vegetables and trees. Food literally comes out of the ground FOR FREE! Our dream is to provide the people of Nolukhanyo the means to grow their own food, and by doing so, to green and beautify the area. We started supporting ten existing gardens in January and now they and others are providing food to those families as well as the soup kitchens which we hope to set up in partnership with the Bathurst Development Trust. To date we have donated seeds, seedlings, trees, vines, compost, wooden planter boxes and, most recently, water tanks. Visit them on Facebook

Elangeni Green Zone, Durban, KwaZulu Natal

Durban City provided shelter to about 2,000 homeless people during the hard lockdown in March 2020 and they turned an open public space in the Durban beachfront neighbourhood behind the Elangeni Hotel into an abundant urban farm. The eThekwini Municipality gave 15 men from a nearby homeless shelter permission to use the land and created a source of fresh food and means to earn income. The Green Zone have just signed an agreement to supply Boxer Superstores with their organic produce as they are only using cow dung and water to grow spinach, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and more. They are busy building a greenhouse to plant herbs in December and you can visit them on Facebook

READ: The corporatization of food in South Africa: We can only end hunger when people have control over what they eat and how that food is produced. Africa is a Country

Kos Gangsters video for MMOCA

A Kos Gangster video, filmed at their launch in September, has been finalised for the MMOCA (Mobile Moviemakers, Cape Town, Film Festival), to be screened on the 4^th December. Mycelium members Lara Taylor (left)  and Natalie Nolte (right) film a large portion of their work using their mobile phones. It is often an intimate way to gain access to stories and with technology growing so fast, it is an effective means.

This video, created by Lara was filmed at the Ocean View Farm and focuses on two of the female farmers. Coming from the harsh environment of Ocean View, their stories highlight the strength and courage that these women have. The farm offers them a space to learn new skills, create new connections and grow their confidence. Mycelium Media Colab knows that it is people, their stories and their drive that will save our environment!  Watch the video here. 

Positive spinoff of the nurdle disaster

The nurdle spill in Cape Town in October prompted the Centre for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC) to find a solution to the excessive amounts of nurdles found along rivers, streams and beaches. Nurdles are tiny pellets of plastic resin no bigger than a pencil eraser which serves as raw material in the manufacture of plastic products. They granulate the nurdles into a synthetic sand as an additive for concrete. The end concrete products are stronger and lighter materials, which include building blocks for houses, toilet blocks for informal housing, and underground drainage pipes.

If  you’re interested in combating plastic pollution, check out The Beach Co-op and the Dirty Dozen https://www.thebeachcoop.org/what-we-do/#dirty-dozen

UCT aims to become net zero water university by 2050

UCT has collaborated with engineering consultancy Zutari to develop and implement a sustainable water management strategy that will result in a reduction of 429 megalitres (ML) of annual municipal water demand on its campuses by 2050. This is equivalent to over 170 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Net zero water is when the water demand met from the municipal supply equals the water demand met from alternative supply options, such as rainwater harvesting, when measured over a period of a year. Reducing the municipal and total water demand at UCT’s campuses will be achieved by progressively implementing various reduction interventions and innovative alternative water-supply options.

“A key focus of the strategy is for the campus to act as a living laboratory that allows students to learn and undertake research through campus facility-based projects,” says Manfred Braune, director of environmental sustainability at UCT.

To achieve this, the estimated committed annual investment in implementing water-saving measures will be R70 million for the next five years and will result in total estimated direct savings of more than R62 million over this period and R21 million annually thereafter. Download the UCT Sustainable Water Management Strategy: Executive Summary.

South Africa’s first Green School to open in Cape Winelands