Growing and Greening the City

News

Cape Town 2014
November 2nd, 2011

Credit: Rooftop Garden/WikiMedia

By its very definition, the urban space is not usually linked to the practice of growing vegetables. Skyscrapers, yes. Spinach, not so much. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that intense urbanisation is not sustainable – not only from an environmental perspective, but also from one of food security.

The team behind the Let Us Grow initiative – architect Rene Bakker, graduate of the Sustainability Institute Andrea Ferry, graduate of the Soil for Life programme Andrew Cole, and ‘mad scientist’ Pieter H Botha – hope to make Cape Town’s urban space a little less … well, urban. And their initiative has been shortlisted for Design Indaba’s Your Street Cape Town challenge.

“Let Us Grow is a project to beautify Cape Town and drive interest in urban agriculture as part of growing hyper-local produce on unused or derelict plots in the city,” explains Andrea. “We also plan to drive community interaction and create employment opportunities with the initiative. The inspiration for Let Us Grow comes from various urban greening initiatives around the world and the team’s interest in promoting sustainable living.”

The initiative would focus on creating community gardens (even on rooftops in the CBD) that would benefit the environment, beautify the city, and engage the community (including local schools, who could use the gardens as an educational tool). The fruit, herbs, and vegetables grown in the gardens would be sold to local restaurants and residents. The revenue raised from the sale of the produce would be ploughed back into the initiative to create more gardens and to train and hire more employees.

“Everyone from the community is welcome to come and farm,” says Andrea, “but we plan to have a farm manager and two farm workers employed to manage the project on a daily basis.”

In addition to the actual gardens, the team also intends to create “Rainbow Sheds”, which will look similar to the iconic Muizenberg beach huts, will serve as a functional space to store seeds and seedlings, and will act as an interaction point for community members and pedestrians to engage with Let Us Grow representatives and find out more about the initiative.

“Let Us Grow has already received corporate interest in contributing to the setup costs of the Rainbow Sheds – a vital part of the project. The Rainbow Sheds are lightweight structures that are highly mobile and available for corporate sponsors to brand in a discreet fashion, which will be one of the important revenue streams for Let Us Grow other than selling produce.”

Aside from the capital to create a Rainbow Shed, funding will also go towards buying plant supplies, soil, compost and tools, and hiring personnel and agricultural consultants (such as Urban Harvest or Soil for Life).

While the initiative’s impact on the urban food system will be relatively small, the team behind Let Us Grow hopes that it will inspire others to start their own urban gardens. What’s more, it will help to create social and environmental awareness in the city.

“The community will benefit from turning derelict or unused property into productive land. Let Us Grow gardens can be a point of pride for the community by beautifying the landscape and providing employment for some members of the community.”

Watch this space for more on the Your Street finalists, the winners of which are soon to be announced.

Text by Rebekah Kendal. Photo supplied by Let Us Grow

[Source: Capetown 2014]