I was fortunate to pay a visit to Greg Mkhize and others' farm in Protea Soweto. This almost 2 ha of farm is really impressive and shows that it is possible to make a good livelihood from urban agriculture. I gave a lot of advice which urban farmers could take note of. This includes:
Always start with the Permaculture design of the farm. The design itself will create value as it optimises the flow of water, energy, people and things on the farm.
Move to well-constructed deep trench gardens. These can improve yields considerably especially for tomatoes. If you have a tunnel, you need to build deep trenches in the tunnel. Remember that every drop of water outside produces, say, 1 cent of value. Inside the tunnel, each drop of water produces more than 1 cent of value. Spend more time inside the tunnel than outside and more time on trench beds than other beds. Optimise your labour. Add biochar to the deep trench bed. Make this yourself by crushing charcoal to powder.
Definitely start a shop on the farm. Urban farmers MUST sell at retail level else you do not make enough margin. Sell at lower price than supermarkets - you can as an URBAN farmer without overheads - and people WILL come to you. Develop the shop and the products. Get PGS Participatory Guarantee Scheme certification (it used to cost R250). Develop a loyalty scheme. Develop a WhatsApp marketing group. Start selling like a there is no tomorrow.
Start sorting produce into high quality, medium and low quality. Low quality can be processed and dried to high quality if you cut off the bad parts. Give the bad parts to chickens or pigs. Get animals as they produce manure.
Start a food for waste programme with your medium quality foods. Cash strapped consumers can bring food waste - for a worm farm - in exchange for food. Now you have a compost system that will bring lots of fertility to your soil.
Also exchange recyclables for food and start a recycling business on the farm. You will collect recyclables at no cost and this is pure profit with no cash investments.
In a previous blog we detailed the 12 or 13 key technologies for an urban farm and take a look. Here you will find more ideas.
I wish all at SIYOYISILE INDLALA the best. You are pioneers.