Vegetables on a high
JOBURG - The Johannesburg Development Agency has funded and helped build rooftop gardens for small-scale vegetable production in the city.
The project will increase food supply in Johannesburg and falls under the agency’s corporate social responsibility mandate, in which the agency gives back to the communities it works in, through sustainable projects designed to benefit and uplift people.
Along with its partners, the agency helped build the rooftop garden at Douglas Village in Troyeville, Johannesburg.
The agency’s executive manager of planning and strategy, Sharon Lewis, said the initiative could contribute to greening and food security in the inner city.
“We want to increase the supply of food, in the process reducing the cost,” she said. “Because people will be buying food produced locally, they do not have to pay extra for transport costs … and also to widen the nutritional value of vegetable food gardens.”
She said the long-term vision was to develop a market where the vegetables would be sold, which would in turn generate income and make the gardens sustainable.
Lewis said the gardens were cost-efficient by using planting pots made of old car tyres.
