Urban Farms

Joburg rooftop gardens bringing agriculture to heart of city living.

- Schalk Burger

Food shapes the daily patterns of city life, and food production in urban and peri-urban areas is increasingly regarded as integral to resilient and sustainable city region food systems, says United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO) director-general José Graziano da Silva.

“In such food systems, urban and Peri-urban agriculture is crucial to the food and nutrition security of poor households, supplying urban residents with fresh, high-value local food, generating employment and creating greenbelts that improve the quality of urban life, and stimulating local economic development,” he says in the UN FAO ‘Growing greener cities in Latin America and the Caribbean 2014’ report.

Most urban farmers are from low-income households and take up farming as a means of reducing their spending on food and making extra income from sales. In Johannesburg, levels of food security are principally related to household income and the ability to access food through purchase.

Officials of the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) Food Resilience Unit and the Johannesburg Development Agency are, therefore, working to help establish rooftop vegetable gardens to ensure food security for vulnerable people in the inner city and promote entrepreneurship.

The city has several productive urban and rooftop gardens in Bertrams, Alexandra, Braamfontein, Orange Farm and Riverlea, among others. Further, the Johannesburg Property Company and the Johannesburg Social Housing Company have provided space, funding and support for two more rooftop gardens that will be launched this year in the inner city.