SOME thirty-five new community food gardens were launched as part of a pilot project in Tsitsikamma last week Wednesday – set to drive economic transformation and sustainable communities.
The Tsitsikamma Community Food Gardens initiative, officially launched by MTO CEO Greg Woodbridge, officials from the department of environment, forestry and fisheries, as well as departments of education and social development, is aimed at alleviating poverty and malnutrition in the area.
The food gardens are in various forms: backyard, open fields and schools.
The first two years of the project will focus on the preparation of the soil, planting and creating awareness.
Income generation will be introduced in the third year and will continue to year five.
MTO Group Chief Stakeholder Relations Officer, Itumeleng Langeni, said, “South Africa is plagued by poverty and unemployment despite political and economic advances since 1994.
“As MTO we had a choice to either keep quiet or investigate further and see what we could contribute towards enabling economic transformation.
“With food you can never go wrong. If you have the land and access to resources such as water the rest comes easy.
“We ultimately want to assist the Tsitsikamma community to find sustainable markets. Tsitsikamma has immense potential and I believe we will succeed.”
His words were echoed by The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Acting Director, No-malwande Mbananga who urged Tsitsikamma stakeholders to “dream big”.
“There is no sustainable forestry or agricultural management without people,” she said.
She added that, as organisations grow, so too should the communities. “We support this initiative. This could be a good pilot, and there is potential to roll this out in other provinces.”
The MTO kick-started this initiative in March 2019, with the official launch last October 2019. To date 35 community gardens have been established in Tsitsikamma. Some of the gardens are new, and some are “revived” – in some areas people had planted gardens which were not sustainable due to a lack of resources.
The MTO will continue to expand the food garden project in Tsitsikamma, and plans to roll out the initiative in other areas.
