Sustainable agriculture 

Market Garden

The Mphatikizo Community center is situated on around two hectares of productive soil and there is also a natural spring close by.  Together, these provide excellent growing conditions. The market garden was started in mid 2017.  Since then there have been a variety of vegetables grown which have been used to help feed children in the orphanage.  

The plan is to develop the market garden to grow enough food to support the orphanage and sell Mphatikizo produce to the local tourist lodges. The market garden will operate as a working example of sustainable farming, with training provided on good farming practices.

Teaching Good Farming Practices

The plan is to develop the market garden to grow enough food to support the feeding centre and sell Mphatikizo produce to the local tourist lodges.  The market garden will operate as a working example of sustainable farming, with training provided on good farming practices.  We aim to use the sustainable principles of farming from NZ and adapt them to local customs, technologies and conditions.  Local people can see and learn about alternative and more sustainable options for their land and their farming practices.  The goal is that, over time, local people will have more reliable and nutritious produce growing on their own land. They will have healthy soil, healthy plants and healthy food.

How you can help:

In order to step up the market garden, we want to employ another gardener (we already employ one person) and get simple tools for the community volunteers to use when they help every Friday.  We also aim to set up a seed bank in the future so that the community do not need to keep buying expensive seed for their own land.