A rooftop hops farm in the city

Hops are traditionally grown in the Western Cape, but on a rooftop in Johannesburg, Khaya Maloney has shown it is possible to grow hops in the city using a hydroponic system. Pieter Dempsey reports.

- Pieter Dempsey

FAST FACTS

Hydroponics allows farmers to directly dial in the nutrients to the roots of the crop, which increases the growth cycle and yield of the hops to produce four harvests per year instead of one.

Yield capabilities differ between hop cultivars, but can reach 500g to 1kg per plant.

The set-up mimics the longer days of sunlight in the Western Cape through compact fluorescent lighting in the temperature-controlled tunnel.

Khaya Maloney grows hops using a hydroponics system under cover on 300m2 of space on a rooftop on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. The space is leased to him. Using this setup, he can produce four harvests a year, instead of the single harvest that traditional hops growers achieve.

While Maloney doesn’t have a formal background or training in agriculture, he has a qualification in construction engineering, with experience working in fintech start-ups. He always knew he wanted to become a farmer, but not in the conventional way of using open land.

He followed his passion for business and innovation and took the leap to become a farmer after he saw a project in New York that involved growing vegetables on rooftops. He says that Minerals Council South Africa had a similar initiative aimed at putting 100 greenhouses on rooftops, and he approached them with the idea of growing hops, instead of vegetables, using a hydroponics system.

“The initiative aims to create an urban agricultural ecosystem by repurposing disused rooftops to produce agricultural produce for Johannesburg’s inner-city communities,” he says.