Johannesburg's New "Agripreneurs" Dig For Green Gold On Skyscraper Rooftops
DECEMBER 1, 2017
Johannesburg's New "Agripreneurs" Dig For Green Gold On Skyscraper Rooftops
OHANNESBURG, Dec 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The soaring “Chamber of Mines” building in central Johannesburg, a hub for South Africa’s mining industry, is a symbol of a bygone era when pioneers began flocking here in the late 19th century to dig for gold.
Nhlanhla Mpati is a small-scale entrepreneurial farmer who started a roof-top farm on top of the Chamber of Mines building in the Joburg CBD.
Today, it is also the site of a new venture aiming to entice the city’s unemployed youth into green entrepreneurship.
The action this time is happening not underground but sprouting from the rooftops of the inner city’s iconic skyscrapers.
The initiative to create urban gardening businesses on vacant roofs was launched more than a year and a half ago by the public-private Johannesburg Inner City Partnership.
Farming is hardly the first thing that comes to mind as a source of job creation and entrepreneurship, said Brendon Martens of Wouldn’t It Be Cool (WIBC), an innovation incubator leading the effort.
“Agriculture is generally seen as a low-tech, bottom of the pyramid-type activity when it’s at the small scale. It’s what a single mom does just to make ends meet,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But Martens and his team are striving to turn the concept on its head by bringing market needs together with cutting-edge farming methods and hands-on business training.
HI-TECH VEGGIES
The initiative uses hydroponics technology, which allows basil, lettuces, spring onions and other crops to be grown in special water solutions without requiring soil or large open spaces.
Here plants grow faster and use up to 80 percent less water than in traditional farming. The technique also eliminates problems like soil erosion.
Another advantage is that crops are grown locally, cutting down on transportation time and costs, and delivering the freshest-possible products to the consumer.
That is a big shift given as much as 80 percent of what is on offer at the Johannesburg fresh produce market, Africa’s largest, is imported from outside Gauteng province, said Martens.
“We pull that value into the communities in the inner city that really need it,” he said.
The farm atop the Chamber of Mines, where neat rows of plants bloom under plastic high above the traffic buzzing below, began operating in September.