City Rooftops: The Next Frontier For Farming

You don’t have to have green fingers to grow lush vegetables and herbs. But you do have to have a head for heights if you want to join the brigade of farmers transforming their lives and Johannesburg’s inner-city rooftops with their hydroponic gardens.

- Lucille Davie

A quiet revolution in normally dead urban spaces has seen seven farms flourish on the rooftops of Johannesburg inner-city buildings since October last year, with four others about to take off. The project is called the Urban Agriculture Initiative.

Between 50 and 60 farms are planned for the next three years, with a spillover effect of about 100 related enterprises, such as agri-processors and technology suppliers, according to Dr Michael Magondo, director of business incubator Wouldn’t It Be Cool (WIBC), which trains the farmers.

Magondo is also a director of the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership, a coalition of various parties involved in rejuvenating the CBD. The partnership is working with the City of Joburg, the Department of Small Business Development, the Small Enterprise Development Agency and SAB KickStart to raise funds for the Urban Agriculture Initiative.

“We expect no fewer than 500 permanent jobs to be created in this process,“ he says.

GREEN ROOFS

The Urban Agriculture Initiative was launched in October 2017 with a single garden on the roof of the downtown Minerals Council South Africa. This was the operation of Nhlanhla Mpati, who started with 300 basil plants. In just over six months, he had harvested 1 000 plants, all in just 66m² of rooftop space.

Today, the gardens are supplying restaurants with spinach, basil, lettuce, chives, and even edible flowers.

Another farmer, Mapaseka Dlamini, now employs four people and supplies restaurants with gourmet lettuce and basil.

Farms are popping up in Hillbrow and Newtown, with rooftops supplied by the Outreach Foundation, the Jozi Housing Company, and the Joburg Land Company. There are also two farms on top of FNB Bank City in Simmonds Street.

Aspirant farmers attend a six-week business course with WIBC, then an additional week of practical training to learn the ins and outs of hydroponics.