Over 180 people from Pietermaritzburg and Richards Bay have been trained to set up basic vegetable gardens at their homes. In an expansion of its Sustainable Communities Programme, the Wildlands Conservation Trust has started a “food-preneur” programme to develop top performers in their “tree-preneur” and “waste-preneur” programmes.
Tree-preneurs grow indigenous trees from seed and exchange them for goods such as food, clothing, bicycles and other items. Waste-preneurs collect recyclable material and also trade it for goods. Wildlands is adding the food-preneur programme as part of their enterprise development goals to identify and develop entrepreneurs within its projects.
“Super-growers” and “super-collectors” will be selected in the 23 communities across South Africa in which Wildlands operates. The top twenty collectors in a community qualify as super-collectors, and have usually collected over 1 tonne of waste. Super-growers are those that have grown and traded more than 1000 trees in a year. These people have shown the initiative and dedication needed to be entrepreneurs, and so will be given the chance to provide vegetables for their families, and possibly develop a business if they grow enough surplus to sell on to market.
The first training took place in February and March, in the Willowfontein, Sweetwaters and SWAPO communities in Pietermaritzburg, as well as at eSikhaweni and Mbonambi in Richards Bay.
Ncamisile Hlatswayo is the project manager for the food-preneur programme, and says the training has gone very well: “We supply a starter pack of 30m of chicken mesh, seed strips and a 10 litre watering can. The first day of training is in sustainable crop production, and day two is a demonstration and training in creating the garden,” she said.
Timefreight, one of South Africa’s leading road express businesses, is donating two vehicles to support the project. Etienne van Ravesteyn, CEO of Timefreight, said “We choose to partner with the Wildlands Conservation Trust’s Food-preneur project because we share a goal of creating or contributing towards sustainable development programmes in rural communities. Through our synergy with Wildlands, we believe we achieve this and importantly the project reaches, on a sustainable basis, hundreds of people in rural communities”.
The project looks set to take off: “We already have some of the “food-preneurs” enjoying their vegetables and even selling to their neighbours, after just a month or two of getting their seeds in the ground,” said Hlatswayo.
Vo Julia Mchunu, “food-preneur” from SWAPO in Pietermaritzburg, has a thriving vegetable garden
Picture credit: Ncamisile Hlatswayo / Wildlands Conservation Trust
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)