Indigenous food farming inspires university-community collective

Even amid the darkest days of this pandemic, there are those who have worked bravely to keep their dreams of a better world alive. Nelson Mandela University has had the honour of working with some of those very people, ordinary men and women driven by a vision for their communities.

And for many, that vision is inextricably linked to heritage, to all the threads that have woven together to produce the tapestry of who we are in the present.

An excellent example of this is found in a project exploring community-based food systems in collaboration with community farmers from across Gqeberha and Kariega, called Abamelwane.

With the support of the university’s Centre for the Integration of Post School Education and Training (CIPSET) and the Hubs of Convergence, and funding that was raised by the Mandela University Convergence Fund, Abamelwane have created pockets of hope and inspiration, building food sovereignty and reviving heritage farming and seed practices across the district.

One of these pioneers is community activist Roja Mofu, a founding member of the #Sibanye community farmers in Kwazakhele, which works with local schools and soup kitchens. Mofu said that #Sibanye was sparked by a range of issues, made more urgent by the arrival of the pandemic when so many lost their jobs and found themselves unable to provide for their families.

“We observed that many people were buying everything from the supermarkets, including food that we can grow for ourselves, using money that they do not have, so we decided to challenge ourselves in breaking this norm and produce our own food,” he said.

Mofu further explained that community food gardens had the potential to unite and educate young people about the importance of keeping the environment clean and green.

“We saw this as something that can mobilise the youth against the poverty and unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse that Kwazakhele is faced with.

“We were also driven by the illegal dumping sites, especially in gap taps and saw these dumping sites as sites that can be transformed into community gardens. We held a number of community meetings promoting this idea, which was supported greatly,” he said.

The popularity of community food gardens has also spread to other townships such as KwaDwesi Extension where the Amandla food farmers are active.

“The initiative started with study group discussions, mainly around the problems of unemployment, crime, alcohol and drug abuse plaguing our community.

“We have also become a part of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign as we believe we cannot win the struggle against food insecurity without food sovereignty,” activist and Amandla organiser Vuyokazi Made said.

As part of the Abamelwane collective, both Mofu and Made have participated in regular area assemblies, where groups get together with those from neighbouring areas to share knowledge and help solve problems faced in their farming journeys.

Mandela University has assisted in sourcing seedlings, tools and training opportunities, as well as hosted a webinar series which connects the practical work of community farming to national and global conversations around food systems and food sovereignty.

In April this year, Eastern Cape organic farmer and agro-ecology practitioner Busi Mgangxela led Abamelwane through a workshop on seed saving, seed banks and indigenous seed heritage.

According to Mgangxela, the accessibility of food has become a problem for many communities in both rural and suburban areas because it is expensive and people are not earning enough money to afford the kind of food they want to eat.

“With organic farming we speak of food sovereignty, a food system that looks at the right of the people to produce culturally relevant food through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. This means farmers own the means of production, they produce, distribute and consume food,” she said.

Mgangxela said that historically, organic farming was practised by our ancestors, who used farming methods that were sustainable, environmentally friendly and healthy for their bodies.

“So if you talk about heritage you are talking about indigenous seed, the keeping of the seed by the family. Culturally, elderly women would be the ones keeping the seed.

“They would start by choosing which seed has to be kept, from which crops and what type of seed needed to be selected for keeping for the next planting season.

“The indigenous seed has been part of our heritage; through [cultural practices] the seed is prevented from being infested with pests and diseases.

“People would store it in their ceilings or roofs inside thatched houses and light fires within the house so that the smoke would protect those grains, especially with maize, which was called isiswenye.”

In her workshop, Mgangxela guided the collective through the practical work of seed saving while weaving in linguistic and cultural heritage, picking up on the cultural practices that have for centuries sustained food production in our region.

It is through following these threads that we become aware that, while learning to harness spaces within the city to grow food for our communities, we are also bringing alive our heritage — the words and the ways that our ancestors handed down to us, and which promise a greener, more ecologically sound and proudly African future.

This piece of writing itself is part of the fabric of a university-community collaboration to support community journalism, called Ubuso Bethu: the brainchild of activist-journalist Wara Fana, who was passionate about linguistic heritage and isi Xhosa in particular, and lost his life to Covid-19 in June.