Organic farming projects on the increase in South Africa

David Wolstenholme, exhibition director of the South African Natural & Organic Products Exhibition, explains the growing trend towards organic food:

"It's about going chemical-free. It's about soil health, which leads to plant health, which ensures animal and human health. It's how most of our crops were grown from the beginning of time until about 1950. Since 1950 more than 100,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our food supply - and now we wonder where the increase in cancer has come from, as well bird flu and mad cow disease."

But there is a lot of hype surrounding the term "organic" - and charlatans who have jumped on the go-green bandwagon.

The term "organic" seems to have two distinct definitions in Africa. The first coincides with the First-World definition of living a greener life. In Johannesburg it means frequenting the weekly organic market... where you can buy organically grown vegetables and meat... Organic, in this context, carries a label of privilege and affluence. Which is why Woolworths (supermarket chain) is leading the good-food journey by sourcing foodstuffs from organic farmers and offering a growing range of organic food.

This brings us to the second definition. In Africa, organic is the conventional method of farming for most subsistence farmers. Organic farming projects are flourishing all over SA, in both the rural and urban regions, with sponsorship from environmentally conscious corporates, notably Nedbank's Green Trust.

One such project is Abalimi Bezekhaya, which has transformed significant tracts of the Cape Flats from an urban desert into a green, community-conscious zone. Today, more than 3,000 families on the Cape Flats benefit from these innovative organic vegetable farming projects, established predominantly by women on the Cape Flats.

Master Farmers is another successful organic farming programme in the Port St. Johns/Pondoland region. More than 100 farmers are successfully inter-cropping a variety of organically grown fruit and vegetables, which they sell locally.

Living green in Africa is a completely different concept from living green in Europe or the US. For example, where cattle ranching in America is being criticised for its role in the deforestation of the Amazon and eating too much meat in the First World is seen as environmentally irresponsible, things are very different here in Africa.

Cattle, cattle farming and eating meat are intrinsic to African culture and the African diet. In SA the most ardent conservationists encourage people to eat meat. Not feedlot meat, but natural, "free range" or rangeland-fed beef and lamb or mutton because, if farmed properly, this form of meat production is highly compatible with grassland and Karoo conservation. These two ecosystems cover the largest terrain in SA, and grasslands are critical to water-stressed SA.

Financial Mail-South Africa