A food garden on the Mamelodi Campus that was established by first-year students in the BCom Extended Programme in 2018 is flourishing. It is not only helping to feed the community, but is teaching local residents to grow their own vegetables. The food garden came about as part of the management and entrepreneurship themes in the students’ Business Management subject, in which they identified food security as one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that they could achieve at a local level.

According to Carto Abrams-Swarts of the Department of Business Management and the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute, the project has grown from strength to strength. It recently received a boost following the establishment of a partnership with Macdonalds, in which the fast food chain is supplying seedlings that can be planted in the food garden.

The establishment of the community vegetable garden was made possible through the support of the Mastercard Foundation and the Mamelodi Business Clinic (now the Mamelodi Business Hub). The produce is grown in a 20 m² plot near the bus stop on the Mamelodi Campus, and is available free of charge to the feeding schemes run by the early childhood development (ECD) centres in close proximity to the campus. One of the key findings of the students’ research prior to establishing the food garden was the need to provide nutritional food to pre-school children.

Students plant vegetables in the food garden at Mamelodi Campus (left) and a student helps one of the children at a local Early Childhood Development Centre in Mamelodi plant a seed.

In addition to planting the vegetables, the BCom students also showed the ECD teachers and learners how to prepare the soil and grow vegetables in their own gardens using recycled material, such as tyres and pallets. Any extra produce is shared among local residents so that nothing goes to waste.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the students were unable to tend the garden, project leader Debbie Mdlongwa was heartened by the sense of community and ownership from staff members who kept the garden going. “We even saw some of the bus drivers and security guards watering the garden when they walked past. This truly illustrates the purpose of a community project and how it can bring people together.”

With the return of the students to campus, the food garden will once again form part of the students’ academic project, in which they will illustrate the sustainability of food gardens and its role in achieving food security, while supporting local entrepreneurs.