When our team at INMED South Africa began an adaptive agriculture project with the all-female Pella Food Garden cooperative in 2017, the members struggled to farm their drought-ravaged land for eight years. Still, they needed more income to utilise all their land or buy inputs. All the members had to rely on government assistance to make ends meet. Co-op leader Ester Nell, however, believed that implementing climate-adaptive technologies would help them survive and thrive.
On November 22, this Northern Cape farming cooperative will celebrate two major agricultural awards, a 60-fold increase in revenue and the launch of Phase II of their incredibly successful project with INMED and Old Mutual.
The event will showcase the various techniques the co-op implemented to improve their traditional agriculture practices and provide public tours of their climate-smart aquaponics system.
Phase II of the Pella project will focus on capacity-building and sustainable profitability through market expansion, further training and the addition of a production processing room and cold storage facility. The group will learn new farm management skills, such as marketing, risk, financial, and labour management. INMED South Africa will also build community support by launching an environmental education programme for the local primary school and providing extensive training for local agricultural extension officers to deliver ongoing technical support after project completion.
For more information, contact Janet Ogilvie at jogilvie@inmed.org.