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Plant, eat and shop local(The trend starts with you)

With food insecurity being one of the biggest issues globally. Gordillo & Jeronimo (2013) defines food security by saying it exists when all individuals, constantly, have physical and monetary access to adequate, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and nourishment inclinations with a specific end goal to lead a sound and dynamic life. This definition gives more important emphasis to the multidimensional idea of nourishment security and incorporates the accessibility of nourishment, access to food and control over it.

There are organisations such as the #OPAC and #WCCO projects at Wits that aim to end student hunger on campus. Recognizing that the food sovereignty is the privilege of people groups to solid and socially proper nourishment created through naturally stable and maintainable strategies, and their entitlement to characterize their very own food and farming frameworks, both the initiatives are working hand in hand to establish and grow gardens which are led by the #INALA initiative which is a student organisation that recruits students to take part in providing nutritious food by growing them.  The garden aims to provide nutritious food for students that cannot afford to have meals during the course of the day on campus.

The center tries to expand and create a hub that will not only feed students but also recognize small scale farmers in and around the inner city, trying to make a change in the food systems since a lot of the markets are being supplied by big cooperation’s in turn price heavily on these organic foods creating an exclusionary space for those who cannot afford what is intended good nutritious food and food sovereignty center tries to bridge that gap in order to gain agency in the provision and supply of food that in turn will decrease food insecurity.

The #MASIDLENI project that is under #WCCO intervention tries to end student hunger on campus by providing cooked lunch and food parcels and such shows food justice as getting a meaning of what is a right to food and not only good food but healthy nutritious food. Photos captured by :Ruth and nompumelelo (2018)

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A new way of farming in the city!

Visiting the Hola Harvest farm we observed that they use different farming techniques such as Hydropolic system in use where they don’t  use natural soil but they use seeds and artificial lighting in some of the plants such as the lettuce. Hydrophobization is the process broadly utilised in numerous mechanical innovations, particularly in those that the advantage of destabalization of watery colloidal supensions (Vinogradova, 1995).This farming technique has proven to be successful because now many people can now adapt the practice especially for people and spaces in the city.

Traditionally the harvesting takes up to 12 weeks but the system speeds up the process making the harvesting to be 4 weeks especially the lettuce thus they still organic and fresh.

It is sub divided into 3 tables.

Normal table

Grows lettuce and uses artificial lighting and normal seeds to grow the plants. The method id to test if the plants grow better with artificial lighting compared to the natural and traditional way with sunlight.

Vertical system

Grows mint, the stall carries water and the pots have soil that support natural growth of the plants.

The interesting factor about this different farming method is that it consumes normal electricity usage as households; it does not require more electricity which saves money as well. The water usge as well is about 180L of water per tank which also helps them save a lot of money by paying normal household municipality rates.

The small scale farm usually caters/ supplies for small businesses such as hotels and on a small scale people that come to buy personally on the farm. References Vinogradova, O. I. (1995). Drainage of a thin liquid film confirmed between hydrophobic surfaces. Langmuir , 11 (6), pp. 2213-2220 Photos captured by :Ruth makamu & Nompumelelo Maseko

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The Joburg Supermarket

Taking a walk along one of the biggest markets in Africa!!!

Johannesburg Market is one that caters for everyone. it is a space for both the farmers and the consumers.

any farmers can penetrate into the system and become a business person, by selling their crops here, the market only demands 10% of the profit. and all their products are from all over the world and are also shipped to all other areas of the world. 

The market has big storage spaces for fruits and vegetables that are easily spoilt. the storage capacity is close to unlimited. #InterestingFact the market ripes their own bananas using a ripening chart.these bananas are sore in a room with generators, the room is then freed of any oxygen apart from the heat that will make them ripe to different stages as prefered by their customers.

the market then uses all the food that has passed its sell by date and give to charity organisations and briefly also donate to people that come from poor backgrounds and do not have a breadwinner. References : photos captured by :Ruth Makamu (2018)

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MICRO-SUPERMARKET KWIKSPAR(Johannesburg)

ADDRESS: 96 Rissik St, Johannesburg, 2000       

Observing the supermarket at Park Station in Johannesburg we recognise that the space is unique and it caters mostly for a specific group of people that are on the move.

the minute you enter the store the people you come across are carrying luggage thus meaning they are on the go and the food they buy are essentials that cater for long distance travelers more of it is cooked.

seeing that most of the shoppers are on the go, we also detected how the store is quickly navigated in a way that it is not a huge supermarket but it is a kind that it contested and the minute you enter in a split second you already at the exit especially when u move around with the trolley.  Normally seeing the mobility of shoppers in the supermarket we can observe the application model of the golden triangle by Gareth in a way that shoppers shop for quick accessible goods in that format for example from the entrance there’s fruits, in between you get access to foods like breads and cooked chicken and water and along the exit you get candy’s of which most travelers do buy when taking their stop at Park Station in arrival or waiting for the next bus or train for take off.

The movement inside is clockwise and in a circular motion thus seeing the aisle are quickly navigable.

References

https://www.google.co.za/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enZA775ZA778&q=kwikspar+park+station&npsic=0&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=-26198747,28051409,969&tbm=lcl&ved=2ahUKEwjL4Y3VwvbdAhVPOMAKHTX5D84QtgN6BAgGEAU&tbs=lrf:!2m1!1e2!2m1!1e3!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:10&rldoc=1#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:!3m8!1m3!1d27556.24323773352!2d28.07679472960126!3d-26.20638935143078!3m2!1i1500!2i739!4f13.1

Drawings and photos captured by :Nompumelelo and Ruth (2018)

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#LandscapeEngravings #AgriculturalActivities #Herding

Unleashing the mysteries of the cultural diversities.

Watching the film #TheForgottenWorld gives us an understanding of the spatial settings of the escarpments in Bokoni Mpumalanga.

We can only imagine the kind of livelihood the Bokoni people lived which is highly embedded with agricultural activities. The landscapes reflect most the historical redundancy that are currently used in academic purposes and research of which it now symbolises that their world has been forgotten.

something of interest is the engravings and patterns that were found on the rocks, they communicated certain messages and gave certain images some of which cannot be interpreted…in relation to our personal experiences that we were exposed to in the field, we’ve recognised that similar rock engravings are now used to symbolise different meanings in spaces and cultures.

we’ve also picked up in the film that agricultural activities are still similar to the traditional ways of farming in the current period for example using cattles to herd along the farms made their work easy in comparison to the rural settlement farms the system is still the same but there is an advancement of technology such in that they use tractors, revealing that the old african agricultural practices are now being forgotten.

Their buttering system as a form of trading was being ought to be a consistent daily tasks such as metal, steel and grains,thus we can see that there has been changes in the form of trading such that in the current period we use capital, natural resources such as gold and copper as our form of trade. this is an interesting comparison we’ve picked up.

https://www.google.co.za/search?q=farming&client=ms-android-huawei&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjngaeFvpneAhVML8AKHRxIBYAQ_AUIESgB