Cape Town — The market for organic vegetables in Cape Town has increased massively over the last few years, locals in the industry agree.
"It's unbelievable," says Saul Rosenberg, one of the directors of a Cape Town-based operation called The Ethical Co-op, one of a number of suppliers and distributors that have sprung up to meet the increasing demand by Capetonians for food grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
While big retailers – with a few exceptions – have been slow to catch on, many small-scale shops and markets are now making space for organic produce on their shelves. Numerous groups and shops are now delivering vegetable boxes directly to consumers and some restaurants are offering organic dishes.
Why the sudden spike in demand?
There are a number of reasons, suggests Rosenberg. One of these is, as he puts it, "bombardment by the media – which is not always necessarily a bad thing!" Eating organic has also become a bit of a fad. "People like to be able to tell their friends they're 'organic'," he laughs.
"But I think the main reason is that people really do understand that there is a major benefit to health, and for the environment, in choosing to eat organic… [it] is being pushed by people like homeopaths and heathcare practitioners – people who are respected in society."
Pat Featherstone, operations director for Soil for Life, an NGO which runs organic food gardening training courses in both Cape Town's townships and its more affluent suburbs, has also observed the remarkable surge in demand.
"We can't keep up with the demand for vegetables grown without chemicals," says Featherstone. "It's amazing. There are ten or 11 gardens [in the townships] which we harvest from every week. We could supply more and more – next year our aim is to be quite big – but at the moment we've got three markets in town and we've just started a fourth one on Saturdays."
Abalimi Bezekhaya, another well-established organic food garden support organisation, is also responding to the burgeoning market. Having supplied distributors such as the Ethical Co-op for the last year with vegetables from the township gardens with which it works, it has now developed its own organic box scheme, which will be kick-started early next year.
"The issue is still one of cost," says Rosenberg. "Organic [food] is still more expensive than conventional; but that is changing because the demand is increasing so much."
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Increased demand means that organic food gardens such as those springing up in Cape Town's townships have better chances of being commercially successful. At present, almost all township food gardens rely on support from organisations like Soil for Life and Abalimi Bezekhaya. The more successful operations are run by pensioners who receive government grants which enable them to cover their basic living costs. Although their gardens bring in some profit, it is not enough to make them financially independent.
"Definitely, people have got to see money," says Featherstone. "People these days don't even want to come to training courses, because they're not getting paid. We're getting much more into market gardening, [where] people will actually get paid. Initially we will have funding to pay the wages, but ultimately people will earn their own money."
"The young people, they need money," says Joyce Nyebela, a pensioner and member of the Fezeka community garden in Gugulethu, which grows vegetables both for subsistence and for sale. "They don't want to work without pay. That's why we haven't got any [young people working in the garden]."
As Cape Town's escalating appetite for organic food grows, however, this looks set to change, as it becomes more and more possible for gardeners to start filling their wallets as well as their stomachs.
An allAfrica team comprising Helen Kilbey (writer and photographer), Zimkhitha Mbunge and Faatimah Hendricks (photographers), Asanda Jezile (videographer) and Verna Rainers (production), compiled this series.
