Some of South Africa’s leading women in agriculture hit the ground running this year. During a recent edition of Food For Mzansi’s Gather To Grow on Twitter, women in farming discussed industry challenges and their thoughts on where the sector is going.
Co-founder of AgriCool, Palesa Motaung shared the importance of focusing on local produce to alleviate food insecurity. She believes that local farmers within the province have enough produce to supply to local markets, instead of importing them.
“A lot of people actually don’t know how far their food travels from,” she says. “That is a big problem in terms of food waste and food loss, also in terms of how much nutrition is lost in that journey, the carbon footprint, and how much water is lost in that journey.”
Motaung says one of the problems faced by the Midlands market in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal is the shortage of basic household vegetables. She adds that some markets in the province source produce as far as Northern Cape.
‘We need to understand where our food comes from’
Host Dawn Noemdoe was also joined by aquaponics farmer Gugulethu Mahlangu, who shared the same sentiments.
She explains how aquaponics is another means of alleviating food insecurity in not only South Africa, but the whole of Africa. As far as she is concerned, the aquaponics model can be placed anywhere in the world.
“We are seeing more cities using their rooftops to create this system so that your food is literally farm-to-fork and you just go down and supply the malls for instance,” she said.
When it comes to farming, Mahlanga believes more should be done in educating the general public about the processes involved in the production of food.
“We need to start educating and teaching people of what it is that we do, where things come from, how things are produced, and supporting locals, she says.
During the session, experts also discuss the following:
- Being viable and fundable in agriculture; and
- Access to land and infrastructure.
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