South Africa: Lenin Drive food garden: From a dump to a productive urban farmland predominantly run by Alexandra women
Her range of dried products include basil, fenugreek, thyme, marjoram, oregano, celery, sage, chilli, rosemary, lemon verbena, parsley, dill, mint and fennel.
By Michelle Banda
Daily Maverick
Sept 2, 2021
Excerpt:
The Lenin Drive garden was once a dumpsite and a rape and murder hotspot, but is now a community garden that sustains region E of the Joburg City Council and beyond with fresh vegetables and herbs. The fresh produce ensures residents’ nutritional and medicinal needs are taken care of. Curly kale, spring onions, chomolia, carrots, spinach and cabbage are popular.
The land belongs to the City but managed by 13 individuals or cooperatives with different visions. Better-performing cooperatives are identified from a pool of communal gardeners and allocated 1ha or more through the Food Empowerment Zone/AGRI parks. These are large City-owned farms ranging from 5ha to 500ha. They include Eikenhoff farm, south of Johannesburg (270ha) and Northern farm (58ha) near Diepsloot.
Violetta Phala Mabaso, a farmer at the Lenin garden and founder of the Malobanyane Co-operative, is one woman who has been successful in the communal garden and has since been given another, larger farm next to Mam Refiloe Molefe’s downtown farm.
Mabaso said she joined the Lenin garden in 2014 with a vision of educating residents of Alexandra about organic, culinary and medical herbs, and hasn’t looked back.
