Nourishing the Nation With Food Gardens

Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA) is feeding the nation by planting food gardens, orchards and fruit trees across South Africa. 

Every year, more and more food gardens are springing up across the country – in schools and communities, urban areas and rural homesteads. With water shortages and changing weather patterns increasingly affecting the food supply, these gardens are helping to improve food security.

Planting more food gardens could be the solution for the 1.7 million households in South Africa whose members go to bed hungry every night. A third of the children in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State are stunted due to chronic malnutrition. Meanwhile, the Western Cape and North West province are home to the highest percentage of underweight children. 

“Our food system is not designed to support the most rural or poorest of children. Eating healthy, fresh vegetables should be a choice – yet they’re not available or affordable.”

Robyn Hills, Programme Manager, FTFA Food Gardens for Africa programme

Better nutrition begins at home

FTFA creates, supports and mentors small-scale farms through its partnerships with corporate sponsors. Through our Food Gardens for Africa programme, we plant 105 gardens every year. And that’s besides the several thousand EduPlant gardens found in South African schools! Each garden receives an average of 30 trees, including fruit trees to eat from and indigenous shade trees to use as windbreaks. So far, more than 1 000 of these mini orchards have been planted across the country. 

Emily Jones, Trees and Carbon Programme Manager at FTFA, says that many community members lack key nutrients in their diets. Eating home-grown fruit is an easy way to access these nutrients. “Fresh fruit is rarely available in low-income communities – and, when it is, it’s usually more expensive than unhealthy snacks. Planting trees at food gardens and households provides better access to highly nutritious food.”

FTFA establishes food gardens and orchards throughout South Africa, as well as planting fruit trees at the household level. By doing this, we help to create greater access to markets and income-generation opportunities, and a more robust food system. This leads to a more diverse supply chain and a more inclusive economy. “About 45% of our food gardens find additional sources of income along the value chain and many projects, including Limpopo’s Valoyi Traditional Authority, have started bottling and pickling their surplus vegetables. This provides them with additional income and the added health benefits of fermentation. Another food garden, Sthembile Community Women’s Project in Gauteng, has recently started packing its own dried herbs,” Robyn shared. 

With a little help from our friends

Tiger Brands has been nourishing the nation with FTFA since 2017. Through this support, FTFA has set up numerous vegetable- and fruit-producing hubs across seven provinces. Together, we’ve planted 8 145 fruit trees, supported 27 food gardens, and positively impacted numerous beneficiaries (about 7 900 in the 2018/2019 financial year alone). We have given fruit trees to 4 000 households, 1 500 of which also received support with their household food gardens.

In Soweto, Tiger Brands provides nutritious food parcels to community members every month. However, it was important to Tiger Brands that community members didn’t become reliant on these parcels. So, with the help of FTFA, they invested in training community members at Thulani Dlamini Home Based Care to grow their own food and become self-sufficient. Likewise, in Stellenbosch, Kayamandi-based Love to Give is another beneficiary of Tiger Brands’ food parcels. With the support of Tiger Brands, Love to Give have created a thriving food garden that they use for demonstrations and training. As a result of their work, they have managed to reduce child malnutrition in Kayamandi from 75% to 2%.

“Our programmes enable people to grow their own food – on any scale. You can nourish your family and community through fruit, vegetables and herbs you put in the ground yourself. By harvesting produce from an organic garden without chemicals, and artificial processing and ripening, you gain all the vitamins and minerals that make food dense and satisfying.”     

Robyn Hills, Programme Manager, FTFA Food Gardens for Africa programme