Gardening empowerment

Introduction

Abalimi is an urban agriculture association created in 1982 by Rob Small to raise some people out of poverty to feed themselves. It operates in the townships of Khayelitsha, Nyanga and surrounding areas on the Cape Flats near Cape Town in South Africa. The aim is to re-teach some people living in the town-ships how to grow some fresh food for a family of 5 five needs. The micro-farming movement also allows self-help job, poverty alleviation and environmental renewal, because it improves organic agriculture.

Abalimi assists individuals, groups and community-based organizations to initiate and maintain permanent organic food growing.

This report deals with the question of farming empowerment in Abalimi. I stayed in Abalimi for two months to understand how to improve urban agriculture (especially micro-farming) among young people. A lot of people consider gardening as an uneducated job because of the advertising, TV or radio programs influence and the local urban and familial culture. As I do in France, I’m looking for a way to cheer young people on micor-farming. In Abalimi, it often seems to be difficult to find young workers for a long time gardening. The world even more urban, not only in territory planning and landscapes but most importantly in our minds. We live as consumers, thinking we can all get immediately. It’s sometimes true, but in a country which doesn’t need a lot of workers anymore (because of the production efficiency and the global competition), we must find another way and believe another economy is possible. 

In Europe as in Africa, we all face the same problem : how to preserve and develop a local agriculture in order to develop a new territorial and economical model and to improve employment, environment, health, way of life, ... ?

Thus my goal will be to exchange with Abalimi to share our experiences in Europe and in Africa. I’m working for an NGO «Bahr Loubnan» (Lebanon-Sea) which has just created an ecological village network around the Mediterranean Sea in favor of a sustainable development and to develop an ecological education at school et extra-school. It is also  difficult to develop a farming and gardening empowerment in France, Italy, Spain, Marocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Greece. So I think it would be very important to establish this networking between Abalimi and Bahr Loubnan.

I plan to work for a french «gardening restaurant». . It will be a way to allow an «entrance» in a garden for urban people. I think the «slow» and good food is an interesting way to allow some people to be concerned by agriculture. I would like also in the future to exchange about this project with Abalimi.

My plan in Abalimi has been at first to understand the Abalimi operation, by visiting Harvest of Hope and all the garden’s network developed by Abalimi. I had to read several documents about this organization and to meet the staff to understand their job. The second step was, thanks to the assessment of the gardens, to understand what is necessary to maintain, develop and gest a sustainable gardening method. It will also allow some people to relay the project. At last, I visited several gardens to chat directly with the gardeners. It allows me to understand what they are waiting in term of success and succession !

We are going to try to understand, among the five key activities of Abalimi, which allow to consolidate the gardening empowerment in order to ensure the succession of the different gardeners. The goal is for sure to get a sustainable development of this organization.

1. What about empowerment ? Sustainable Development Education (SDE) contribution

This first part deals with the different tools that Sustainable Development Education (SDE) can propose to help the gardening empowerment in Abalimi, especially for young people. However it is possible to use it for adults.

Definition

According to the limitation of natural resources, biodiversity erosion, global change , communication and information tides acceleration, all people and societies have to sustain this phenomenon without being able to control it. 

Change adaptation and citizen integration are necessary to improve an empowerment . which It be used to know more our territory and to be able to understand our place in society and the role we can play in it. 

If we consider urban agriculture and micro-farming as future generations activities et jobs, training some people in a micro-farming organization may not be enough. It may be desirable to use all the SDE tools improved for several years to find solutions to encourage young people to be involved in urban agriculture.

Citizen and agriculture empowerment is useful if we allow some people to understand , to know the tools and to find the energy to develop their own project. SDE offers three steps : acceptation, tools knowledge and capacity of engagement. The last may be the hardest of all.

SDE issue 

Before introducing the three steps of empowerment, I am going to present the principles of the sustainable development. The sustainable development according to the definition of Gro Harlem Brundtland is a «development that meets the needs of the present population without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.»

It contains within it two key concepts : 

- the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given (Doc 1)

- the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."

Doc 1 : Maslow’s pyramid needs

It means that there are some practices to understand the notion. At first, sustainable development implies a principe of interdependence, the «links». It concerns time scales links (past, present and future ; short, medium and long run). We have to make the link between different context of time thanks to history that makes us understanding times links. It means we haven’t to repeat mistakes of the past and use prospective tools for changing foreseeing (Doc 2).

Doc 2 : What about past consideration ? Socchi area before and after

Olympic Games in 2014

Interdependences concern also links between spaces. For example, if a local government decides to build an highway allowing to improve the road traffic, it has also to take care  of the economy, the social fields and the environment of small villages located in the project area. The same problem won’t be resolved in the same way in a state, a region or a village (Doc 3). 

Doc 3 : What about space scales consideration ?

A third topic deals with the necessity to link different life systems : social, environmental and economical fields (Doc 4). «The economy depends on energy and others resources too ; available resources depend on geography and policy ; policy depends on military force ; military force depends on technology ; technology depends on ideas and resources ; ideas depend on policy to be accepted and supported ; etc, etc ...» (Saaty T.L., 1981-1984, to decide according to complexity, analytic approach for policy coaching).

  Doc 4 : The three sustainable development pillars 

The second main principle is equity or «balance». It allows to take care that interdependence don’t induce inequality between territories, people, past, present and future. We need win-win links. It is the other condition of sustainable development. We need for example a balance between production and consumption of resources « without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.» (Brundtland Report, 1989) Otherwise, the economical and ecological system would not be sustainable for the society. 

Sustainable development is a problem of understanding and balance. And thus equity is inseparable to interdependence considerations. It is not enough to learn the principles of sustainable development without knowing how to realize it. We need a new system of learning at school. 

According to sustainable empowerment, Francine Pellaud, a swiss researcher at the University of Lausane, considers there cannot be sustainable development education (SDE) without an empowerment method. Knowledge is not enough, the children need to be engaged in a project.

She divides the SDE in three steps : 

• to accept : we have to accept each situation, an event to mind with dispassion and help us to find the best solution to repair the «mistakes» of our parents and our grand-parents ;
• to know the tools : to act. It supposes to understand the complexity of a problem, a situation and a reality. It supposes not to use only books and courses rooms. Children have to go out, look at the environment, appreciate a flower, an animal, feel compassion for environment, community, society ;
• to get involved : it supposes to have strong conviction to get engaged and to benefit a good coaching for a long time.

According to the two sustainable development principles (interdependence and equity), in the french education system, four topics have been chosen to gather SDE and school curriculums at primary and secondary school : biodiversity, landscape changing, ecological management, waste management. It is indeed a way to satisfy the two main principles of sustainable development. Even if the three steps of the SDE can be satisfied, National  Education program doesn’t precise this field. 

It is however useful to explain these different new school maters.

• Biodiversity  : it is necessary for our welfare, in a lot of areas, is menaced by human practices.  The biodiversity lost can induce bad consequences for humanity. So, human being must include it in his territory planning.
• Landscape : it results form natural and human factors : its study includes natural elements,   society traces and territory planning in a space and time’s dynamic. 
• Environment management (risk and damages)) : the development of our societies is based on environmental resources. The human and natural resources exploitation can generate some damages.
• Reduce-use again-recycle : humans provide waste whose the management is a central problem. 

Doc 5 : SDE at primary school in France

2. Empowerment inventory in Abalimi 

In this part, we will make an inventory of all the tools used by Abalimi to train future gardeners in order to a gardening empowerment. It deals also with obstacles and solutions found thanks to interviews of several members and gardeners of Abalimi.

Current training tools in Abalimi

We found in Abalimi several knowledges and involving tools which could be used according to a SDE training (Doc 6). These knowledges and tools allow Abalimi to ensure continuous engagement with farmers and consequently advancement, subsistence in the Farmer Development Chain (FDC). Abalimi use an educational tool called the basic farmer training course. It is a four day intensive course which provides the knowledge and skills for anybody to start growing their own vegetables. We can however focus on several improving obstacles. There are a lot of dangers for gardening in the Townships around Capetown because of the kind of earth and climate of these huge dune areas on which townships were built during the Apartheid : extreme temperatures, sand dunes and gale force winds. 

    Doc 6 : Farming training with David Golding

If an individual takes part in a training course, they automatically receive an individual Abalimi membership and are considered to be in the survival stage. After this initial entry point, members may go to one of the two garden centers in order to gain access to subsidized compost, seeds, seedlings, and gardening advices. We can say it’s a first step to a technical empowerment. 

The second step is once the farmer has moved from backyard farming to a community garden, he/she receives constant advice and training from Abalimi’s field team. The third step : when farmers move up the FDC they gain in organizational, technical and communication skills whereby they gain an ever increasing measure of autonomy from the supporting organization. At last, once Abalimi micro-farmers have gathered experience growing food they may attend Abalimi’s  Agriplanner training program. It is a special business training program for illiterate people, which instructs trainees on agri-business principles and practices for vegetable gardening. There however can be a risk, before be helped by an agriplanner, to get bad habits.

In a perspectiv of empowerment, it is difficult or easy to allow some future gardeners to accept to progress step by step. Indeed, the Abalimi’s advice to the farmer organization is to start small, to grow slow and to follow the farmer. This last point is really important not to impose ideas on the farmers but to support him in their needs. It is also a good way to make him responsible in his business.

Developing a garden is a priority but not only. To allow a gardener to get a job and to develop his business, he needs a market system. Harvest of Hope was created to resolve this question (Doc 7). HoH, a social enterprise created in 2008, is a division of the voluntary organization Abalimi Bezekhaya.  The role of Harvest of Hope is to create a reliable market place for the vegetables produced by township micro-farmers. So the main part of Harvest of Hope in the context of the FDC is to incentivise and reward  increased framing skills and production. Especially for young peole it is challenging to remain motivated without the possibility of earning cash from their micro-farm. It is necessary to prevent the micro-farmer from having to spend a lot of time, effort, and money on the marketing of their produces. Instead she/he can focus on farming and developing along the FDC.

Doc 7 : Packshed for Harvest of Hope

The social benefits of organic gardening and micro-farming among the poor are enhanced through activities such as : iLIMA mutual help work events where members from different community projects gather and work together on one community project site to accomplish large or difficult tasks. Horizontal (farmer to farmer) learning events and farmer field schools are also very important to share stories, difficulties, problems, solutions and achievements among themselves, as well as to receive and share specialized training on specific issues. At last it is important to open a project saving account in order to make use of Abalimi’s projects (Doc 8). 

  Doc 8 : Meeting between Abalimi and Goedgedacht farm

Micro-farmers are encouraged to organize and collaborate through Vukusenzela, a farmer movement coalition. Abalimi assists community garden projects to connect to other opportunities and sevices which they may require. 

The Sustainability Index allows Abalimi to understand, measure, evaluate and support the different projects. The goal of the Farmer Development Chain and the Sustainability Index is to create tools that farmers and support organization staff can use to intentionally direct training, resources and support. The evaluation is divided in for stages : Survival, subsistence, livelihood and commercial. We will use also interviews among the Abalimi’s staff and gardeners to get their advices about this empowerment.

As it is written in the Farmer Development Tools guide, the goal is to allow a farmer to move through each of the four stages in succession, beginning with the survival phase and  ending as a commercial farmer (Doc 9). I reality, most of the farmers settle in, or move through the FDC in many ways and many farmers will stay at the survival level in perpetuity. The highest numbers of Abalimi farmers are in the survival and subsistence phase and a small part of the farmers are in the livehood level. And there are no Abalimi farmers that are in the commercial stage yet.

Doc 9 : Abalimi’s coaching in a garden

But is it necessary to reach the last step to consolidate and allow young people to be attracted by urban agriculture ? The guide notice tells us that not every farmer has the skill or the desire to be a commercial farmer. Many micro farmers that are part of Abalimi will always remain in the first step. So it is important to recognize that sustainability can be achieved by any type of farmer and in any phase of the FDC.

It is very interesting to notice that the social impacts of micro-farming are highest in the lower stages of the FDC. There is a proper transformation in the mind of the producers : they become «generous» and open-minded. They sell to the local community, to local shops and via Harvest of Hope, but also donate to schools or to sick community members and to those have nothing to eat. «Survival and Subsistence» phases are the most cost effective and powerful phases of micro-farmer development and alone can permanently overcome extreme hunger and nutritional insecurity.» «Social benefits, such as women’s empowerment, are massive at these levels.»

Which empowerment for young people ?

At these two first steps, is women empowerment enough to attract young people to this work ? Thanks to the Sustainability Index (SI), it is possible to create tools that farmers and farmer support organizations can use to intentionally direct training, resources and support. 

It is interesting to notice what in the SI interview allows to understand what questions concern the gardening empowerment for young people. The SI interview is composed of seven different sections : physical (4 questions), production skills and practice (20 questions), group organization (5 questions), own resources and fundraising and subsidies (9 questions), sales and marketing (5 questions), money management (4 questions) and conducted evaluation (9 questions). 

In the «conducted evaluation» section of the interview, the question «Who is working in your garden in 5 years ?» and «How do you get new members» allow to know if it is difficult or easy to train new people for gardening. If the empowerment, once the gardener get a good assessment, succeed to gather many people in his project. The last question «Where do you want to be in the future ? » allows to know if they have the capacity to communicate their enthusiasm to the young generation. 

Indeed the sustainability of the garden doesn’t depend only on the capacity to provide a lot and for a long time, but also on the capacity to train young people. We prepared several questions to ask the gardener to know which motivation is needed to become a gardener.

At first, we wanted to understand why it is important to help young people to be involved in gardening. Among the staff and the gardeners, it is necessary to attract some young people to gardening because we need to develop the gardening thanks to the growing of the production and the increase of business. Indeed, old gardeners can not make a plan on many years like young people and have not the same interest to get some money as young people. So, if we want to reach the «commercial step» in more and more gardens we need to train some young people for gardening. We hope a kind of «Snow-ball» effect also because young people attract young people. 

The second question deals with the way to gather young people around gardening.

After having made several interviews in Abalimi’s garden (Fezeka, Guguleta, Sanoxolo, ...), here are the remarks of the gardeners about obstacles et tools to allow gardening empowerment :

Obstacles to gardening empowerment for young people : 

• A work for old people
• Non financially worthwhile job : young people want to get money immediately
• A problem of generation : the new generation didn’t use to work or to help in a garden from childhood. It’s not the case of most of the gardeners in Abalimi (who are more than fifty years old). There is a kind of sacrificed agricultural generation 
• Physically difficult
• No agriculture course at primary and secondary school
• No touch with a garden at home and at school
• No good medias feelings 
• No nutrition education at school and at home
• Young people and not old people attract young people and so can empower yonf people
• Agriculture has not a good image in the advertising, is not fashion
• Difficult to find some time for the gardeners to teach, to educate young people
• Lack of consideration

Solutions :

• Make micro-farming and gardening attractive
• Train some young gardening teachers
• Make links between primary and secondary school and gardens
• Show that we can get some money quickly
• Tell a story about gardening
• Show that we can develop a lot of activities around a garden : cooking, education, art, ...
• Working on the five senses of Young people
• Use the advertising tools to improve this empowerment
• To allow families to enter a garden every week
  
  
  
  

3. Educational courses

Understanding of obstacles, solutions for a gardening empowerment and empowerment tools in Abalimi can be used to build some pedagogic activities according to the principles of sustainable development and the steps of sustainable development education (SDE). 

We may choose to propose elements of a pedagogic sequence about needs to become a gardener. We will respect the three steps of the SDE and the two principles of sustainable development. So, we will use what in Abalimi Organization is useful to create this sequence and at last add some pedagogic elements which don’t exist nowadays in Abalimi. The goal of this exercise is to allow an empowerment and use tools of the knowledge, desire and engagement. The pyramid of needs from Maslow (Doc 1) shows how to satisfy needs thanks to sustainable development. It means that to teach SDE, learners need to satisfy their needs also : physiological, safety, security, love, belongingness, self esteem, creativity, self actualization, vitality, authenticity, playfullness, meaning fullness. We don’t want to order these needs from the most important to the less, because sometimes, according to a certain way of life, this order may be different. We will so try to give the same importance to all these needs. 

From needs to sustainable development

The goal of the sustainable development is to have a «development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.». It means that for a same quantity and quality of needs we need a certain quantity and quality of resources. And this certain quality and quantity of resources can be insured by the two principles of sustainable development : links and equity.

In a first time we are going to order the different needs satisfied by the local agriculture (micro-farming) in the different fields of the two principles of sustainable development and thus find some activities to propose for an empowerment (Doc 10). 

Doc 10 : Sustainable development links in gardening

Afterwards, we consider, thanks to the sustainable development, that needs must be satisfied on a long term and, thanks to the SDE, needs must be satisfied immediately. It means that we have to induce the desire among people who are going to get a sustainable development education thanks to gardening. 

We saw that most of young people don’t want to become a gardener because this job seems to belong to the old generation. Even if we will always have enough old people to manage for gardening, it’s not completely satisfactory. Because they have more time ahead, young people more than old people could really develop the gardens and increase the number of gardens reaching the level of «Commercial» without staying all his life at the step «Survival and subsistence». The successful of these young gardeners would allow more young and old people to join the kind of project. It would be a very good «snow-ball effect» for employment and the increase of urban agriculture in South-Africa. 

The following board allows to know the activities we can propose according to the needs we must satisfy when we teach the sustainable development thanks to the gardening (Doc 11). It means that we have to use the gardening to explain the two principles of sustainable development : links and balance. So we can explain the links between : agriculture-fooding (links between scales of space and time scales), environment-health (links environment-society), agriculture-agriculture (links between scales of space and scales of time), agriculture-economic achievement (links between economy and society), agriculture-history (links between scales of time), agriculture-geography (links between scales of time), agriculture-social consideration (links between society and economy), agriculture-family story ((links between scales of time), production-consumption (links between scales of space and time scales), agriculture-identity (links between scales of time and space), mental health-social fields (links between environmental and social fields), mental health-economic achievement (links between social et economical fields).

Doc 11 : SDE activities for a agardening empowerment according to needs of people

From needs to SDE

So we can propose different activities for adults and young people according to sustainable development education thanks to the gardening. To organize this teaching, we need the three steps of the sustainable development education : acceptation, tools knowledge and engagement. Our goal is to allow a gardening empowerment according to the principles of sustainable development. But it is possible to spread the three steps of SDE in different activities. We don’t have inevitably to begin only with «acceptation» activities, and «knowledge tools» and at last «engagement». «Acceptation», «Knowledge tools» and «engagement» can be in all activities.

Doc 12 : Topic training propositions according to the three steps of SDE 

(in red: current Abailimi’s training)

Conclusion

Since 1982, Abalimi has managed to develop micro-farming in the townships of Khayelitsha, Nyanga and surrounding areas on the Cape Flats near Cape-town although difficult climatic and social conditions. Nowadays, 3545 famers exist and 265 farmers are trained by Abalimi. And the association helps 3000 micro-farming per year. An amazing work has already been done to improve micro-farming in townships. The second big challenge of Abalimi for the following years is to attract young people to garden. Why ? Because, as told people I interviewed in garden, there is not a problem of age (of the gardeners even in most of them are more than fifty years old- but a problem of generation. Current gardeners have always gardened since their childhood because their parents or grandparents had a garden or were farmers. But it is not sure that in thirty years young people will also garden. Urban culture is in all brains and the second big challenge of Abalimi will able to improve a, efficient gardening empowerment with all its partners : schools, government, NGO, ... In fact, why gardening ? Because it allows some people to reconnect to sage values, to feed with good products, develop a subsistence economy to fight against poverty and to improve a commercial economy to promote employment. 

The tools of sustainable development education can allow this gardening empowerment, provided by such training is organized, structured and managed by a really involved teaching structure. The activities proposed in this rapport should also be completed by others according to satisfaction of young people needs (and adult because the SDE is not just for young people), principles of sustainable development (links and balance) and at last according to the three training steps of SDE.