Urban Farming Experience

What is urban farming?

Urban farming is farming that take place in urban areas like Townships and cities. This type of farming can be done in open fields, school backyards and plots owned by the municipality. The farms are usually used to uplift the community and give unemployed community members something to do while they are at home. The main purpose of urban farming is for the farmer/s to make a produce and sell it in order to make an income. 

left Farmer, Student (Sibongumusa) and Mr Monareng (farmer)

Service Learning Project

Servicelearning is an educational approach that balances formal methods of teaching which are done in the classroom with a fresh interactive way of learning which is done practically, outside classrooms. As Public Relations students we were given a service learning project that required us to go to Urban Farms in Soweto and use any skills that we've learnt thus far in our course to help the farmers make their farms more productive. During our visits we noticed that the farm that was assigned to us lacked a number of basic farm equipment and that created a number of challenges for the farmer. All the challenges that will be listed below contributed to our farmer not being able to get maximum profit from his farm

• Lack of workforce
  No irrigation system
  Work source too far from garden
  No Nets to protect produce from sun 

Throughout the journey we experienced the important of how farming in urban areas such as townships, and how people are so depended on what farms produce. For Mr Monareng to actually get all the equipment the farm needs will take some time hence the department that contacted have procedures that have to followed for all farms