As Western consumers move toward natural foods, organic farming in South Africa is confined to small-scale believers and subsistence farmers
Julia Grey
THE Michael Mount Organic Market in Bryanston, Gauteng, features immaculate wooden stalls stocked with nature’s elixirs and healing stones, the soothing sounds of an acoustic guitar wafting over piles of purple aubergines and wholewheat vegetable pies.
But more apparent than the peace-and-love atmosphere is the sense of white affluence. If it weren’t for the heat, you might be forgiven for thinking that you had stepped into a European village market.
Perhaps this isn’t particularly surprising if you consider two things: firstly, organic produce is notably more expensive (about 50% more) than that in your average supermarket; and secondly, the concept of “organic farming” has been imported from Europe and Australia.
But the basics of organic farming are practised by other communities – all over the country black subsistence farmers still raise crops in the ways of the ancestors, working their fields by hand and relying on the natural ingredients of the soil.
“Organic” farming is essentially what humans have been doing since antiquity, say Robin de Lorm and Terry Hagen, whose farm “Green Piece” in the Hennops River Valley has been going since 1989. It’s working within the rhythms and order of nature to produce food.
They point out that this is a back-to- basics attitude, a reaction to the “Green Revolution” of the 1930s, which ironically marked the beginning of chemical use in farming.
Organic farmers in South Africa tend to choose one of three methods to raise their crops and livestock, including:
* Permaculture, started in Australia by Bill Mollison and David Holgren, emphasises the connections between all elements within the farm’s ecological system. Avice Hindmarch, a Gauteng-based farmer, explains that a thorough knowledge of “symbiotic links and connections” allows the farmer to manage pests and increase soil fertility without using outside materials.
In practical terms, this means practices like “companion planting”, where compatible plants are placed nearby each other as a natural way to control pests and their predators; and mixed farming, which includes animals and plant life in an integrated, balanced system. Ultimately, the farmer “designs a system which then manages itself”.
One particularly valuable aspect of Permaculture is the emphasis on conserving water. Rain water that falls on the ground is directed deep into the soil to strengthen underwater springs, while rain that falls on to various farm structures is collected and stored.
* Biodynamics, the brainchild of philosopher Rudolf Steiner, takes the concept of “interconnectedness” a step further. Pieter Gernaat, a member of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association of South Africa, explains that the “forming forces from the sky” are as important as the “creative forces of the land”.
This kind of farming strives to use these “life-forces” as optimally as possible. For example, when the moon is in a water constellation, it is a “leaf” day, meaning it’s a good time to plant vegetables like lettuce and cabbage. Says Gernaat: “What it boils down to is it is not unimportant in what phase of Mars you plant an oak tree”.
* Organic can be broadly used to describe farmers who do not spray their crops with “poisons” or use artificial fertilisers. A key to this is the use of organic waste to create compost, which neutralises unwanted hormones or chemical residues and builds the fertility of the soil.
Until now, organic farmers in South Africa have not been a unified movement. An initiative in 1995 to establish an Organic Agricultural Association of South Africa (OAASA) collapsed due to internal politics and a general lack of commitment.
There is also a lack of a cohesive infrastructure: organic farmers receive “not a sausage” (as Hagen puts it) in subsidies from the government, and there is no such thing as a South African organic certificate, or the practice of widespread testing, to make sure certain standards can be guaranteed to the consumer. Farmers who do certify their produce, which is imperative if they are going to export to places like Europe, do so at their own expense.
A further inhibiting factor is the absence of “educated consumers” conscientised to the benefits of organic methods. At present, organic farmers supply only upmarket greengrocers, or elite supermarkets.
However, the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), which represents small-scale organic farmers in 92 countries, is starting a project in South Africa that could mobilise the locals.
IFOAM, represented by Hindmarch in South Africa, intends to conduct a survey of both conventional and organic farms to see “how man can farm, feed himself and supply food, not at the expense of the environment”, and secondly “to see what needs to be done in order to improve the systems”.
Meanwhile, the basics of farming organically are shared by farmers at the other end of the spectrum – “peasant” farmers, located in rural areas, continue to use what are essentially traditional methods of farming. Their persistence in using these methods is perhaps less to do with principle, than with poverty: they simply can’t afford the chemicals that mainstream farmers use.
These small-scale organic farmers are attracting the attention of foreign agents, who buy up their produce, sort and pack it themselves, and then export it to organic- hungry markets such as Europe. A French- Canadian, Robert Tritz, has become involved with indigenous farmers in KwaZulu-Natal who have been growing sugarcane organically for many years. Tritz managed to secure the use of a small, abandoned sugar mill, and putting two and two together, came up with the successful enterprise of exporting the organic sugar.
Hindmarch points out that “there is an enormous resource of small producers” which has not been locally explored. If a collecting and marketing system could be developed, and “organic” popularised locally, the benefits to the farmers could be enormous. However, she believes that it is an opportunity that the farmers themselves need to own: the use of a middle-man makes the small-scale indigenous farmers vulnerable to exploitation.