URBAN FARMING

URBAN FARMING

Urban farming is as important as employment creation and the are a lot of advantages that accompany it.Green Gotham this article says a mouthful with regards to the advantages associated with urban farming. I was fortunate to work with a local urban farmer and here is my experience : The farmer I worked with is Mr Elliot Monyobi and he is based at Pimville Soweto, he grows vegetables( spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, beetroots and other). Urban farmers usually face a lot of difficulties because they do not have enough necessary resources that will make their work easier, the reason for this is because they are independent farmers who do not have sponsors to assist in terms of financial needs and resources. Mr Elliot like many of urban farmers do not have resources such a hose pipes, nets, fertilizers and enough water, His farm is also unknown because he does not know how to market it. The local neighbors are the people who know about his farm also the area where he farms is difficult to notice that there could be a farm therefore,my team and I designed a clear poster that will show that within the premises there is a vegetable farm.
Our concern for Mr Elliot's farm is that he did not necessary create financial relationship with the community of which he wanted to serve we therefore, saw it important that we help him create those relations that will help him in creating and having a sustainable profit for his farm through relationships. We wrote a pitch letter to the local newspaper  and sent it to the following email mzwandilek@cityurban.coza  with the hope of getting Mr Elliot's farm published so that a lot of people can be aware of the farm, adding to that we used the 5km radius that will help Mr Elliot to have a sustainable relationship with the community. We where able to work with the nearby Catholic church. We introduced Mr Elliot to the church leader thus a sustainable relationship was created, through this Mr Elliot was given the permission to come to the church every Sunday after the service to sell his vegetable to the church members within the premises of the church.

THE URBAN FARMING TEAM

Working with the team was an overwhelming experience because it took a lot of time when we had to decide on what to do, it was also an eye opening experience as I learned that a lot of hands are better than one because we were able to complete a lot a work within a short period of time as compared to having to do it alone.