PEDI Urban Agriculture Academy to create a cohort of emerging farmers

PEDI – the Philippi Economic Development Initiative – is developing an alternative to conventional farming that it believes can be economically transformative for an area beset by poverty and unemployment.

Image Supplied

Built as a centre of excellence to promote job creation, skills development, entrepreneurship, water security and food security, the initiative has been driven by PEDI CEO Thomas Swana and PEDI project manager Paul Stohrer, working in association with Roger Jaques and Phumlani Dlongwana, founding partners of the Waste to Food project, to develop a vision for an ecologically smart system that reuses all its water and maximises the natural opportunities that the local conditions offer.

The creation of the PEDI Academy is a departure from PEDI’s previous role in local development. Now investing directly into a project, with R1m of its own funds and the allocation of grant funding it receives from the City of Cape Town for enterprise development and skills development. PEDI has attracted a range of other partners. Key among these has been assistance from staff at the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s Elsenberg training facility and from the Rotary Club of Kirstenbosch and Haw & Inglis, who have been giving invaluable support in building the project and developing a programme to provide bridging training to students from the institutions.

The 2,500 square metres that make up the academy’s covered farming tunnels, as well as a seedling tunnel, donated by the Dhladhla Foundation, brings the total value of the investments so far to R3m.

A partnership between PEDI and CEO for Business Activator, Egbert Wessels (located at Philippi Village) is being developed for the incubation, training, and development of new business owners who can become the beneficiaries of the PEDI Academy and for informal traders.

Creating a cohort of emerging farmers

PEDI CEO Swana says the involvement of outside partners is turning the project into one of the most exciting initiatives the area has seen. "The farm and the growing system is a model that can address food and water security while building new businesses, creating jobs and assisting poverty alleviation. And, critical for the future of the city, it can also secure the value of the remarkable resource that is the PHA – the Philippi Horticultural Area," said Swana.

Thomas Swana

"Our vision is for the creation of a cohort of emerging farmers who we hope will eventually become productive entrepreneurs on unproductive land in the PHA, as well as a cohort of urban community farmers," Swana added.

The academy has come together in less than a year since PEDI committed itself to investing in a centre of excellence to take forward the original vision of this location in the heart of Philippi, the Philippi Fresh Produce Market. When the city built the market in 2006, it was intended that activities here should be used to accommodate a cohort of emerging farmers. For a range of reasons, the site has never fulfilled its potential.

Last week a lease was signed with the Philippi Market Operating Company to grant PEDI custodianship of two sites - one of 3.5 hectares and the other of .8 hectares - for the development of the academy and associated emerging farmer operations, and for leasing to Waste to Food – a project in which PEDI has also invested R1m, alongside Pick n Pay, Don’t Waste Service and the Industrial Development Corporation.

Worm action

Inside the 2,500 square metres of tunnel, 64 growing beds have been built using a novel drainage system to link them to a set of worm composting hammock beds run by Waste to Food. In these hammocks, high-quality compost and organic leachate are produced through the action of the worms.

Image Supplied

The leachate is drained straight from the worm composting beds into a sump that takes it to tanks filled with borehole water, which in turn is used to flush-irrigate the growing beds. These then drain back through the system to moisten the worm hammocks, which produce more leachate to feed the crops in the beds. The system means there is full recycling of the water, which is drawn from the Cape Flats aquifer. At the location of the PEDI Academy, the aquifer sits just a few metres below the ground. The pump station that is needed to manage this system is housed in a shipping container donated by Haw and Inglis.

Trainers and training

The growing beds in the PEDI Academy are already under crop and are being managed by a team trained in farming methodology and practice by organic farming consultant Maryna Booysen. The first planting in these beds proved so abundant that the crop was ready for harvest barely halfway into its anticipated growing season.

The team leaders are being trained so that they will, in turn, become trainers for future emerging farmers at the academy. Candidates will receive business and entrepreneurship training and leadership, in addition to the hands-on farmer training.

PEDI believes this initiative will do many things for Philippi. By giving young people the opportunity to become farmers, PEDI is making a difference to this community. PEDI is giving candidates skills that will allow them to seek dignified work and training people who will be trained to train others. PEDI will be reaching community gardeners, and those running school and ECD gardens. The project will have a significant multiplier effect.

We hope that this project can grow to reach the many, many people of the area who can benefit. We aim to demonstrate that it can be replicated to bring this system of food production to other areas too.

Fact sheet

• The PEDI Urban Agriculture Academy is situated on land adjacent to the Philippi Fresh Produce Market. PEDI has custodianship of 4.3 hectares of land for use in developing the local agri-economy, in particular, as this benefits emerging farmers.

• Investment in the PEDI Urban Agriculture Academy has been through R1m of direct investment from PEDI, and the allocation of grant funding that PEDI receives from the City of Cape Town, R243,000 from the Rotary Club of Kirstenbosch for skills development and equipment to enable crop production, and the donation of multi-span farming tunnels by the Dhladhla Foundation.

• The project leaders for the PEDI Academy are PEDI CEO, Thomas Swana; PEDI Project Manager Paul Stohrer; Agriculture Advisor Maryna Booysen; Technology Advisor Roger Jaques.

• Current farming activity takes place under 2m500 square metres of multi-span covered tunnels donated by the Dhladhla Foundation. Future open-field farming is planned for part of the property as part of the academy.

• 64 growing beds have been constructed in a novel system that makes use of a plastic-lined cement-panel frame, filled with carefully layered gravel, and a mix of coconut husks, sand, and vermicompost.

• The beds are sub-irrigated via a flushing system that delivers a nutrient-rich mixture of groundwater and vermi-tea to the plants.

• Vermi-tea is collected from the 25 worm hammocks of the Waste to Food project that have been constructed adjacent to the Academy. This is fed to a holding tank for use in the PEDI Academy growing beds.

• Four 10,000-litre tanks have been configured to store the vermi-tea, mixed with borehole water, supplying the sub-irrigated beds.

• Water that drains through the beds is collected in a return tank and used to once more soak the worm hammocks, where moisture content is critical.