Free State cooperative Phumelela Agri has launched a student backyard vegetable garden competition to empower youth.
The contest is open to high school students in the Vrede and Memel areas, and Phumelela Agri chairperson Nkosana Mtambo said the aim is to ease household food security by encouraging young people to produce their own food.
The UN World Food Programme predicts that millions more people will face food insecurity in the coming years. Already, in the 79 countries where it works and where data is available, it estimates that more than 345 million people face high levels of food insecurity. This is more than double the number in 2020.
Phumelela Agri will give contestants seeds and professional advice on everything from preparing the land to harvesting. The organisation is a 13-member cooperative that plants more than 5 000 hectares of maize and soybeans.
Mtambo said the group decided collectively to launch the competition after hearing from older members that even though agriculture was one of their subjects at school, it turned them off farming because it was used as a punishment.
“I was given a mandate by the members to initiate this and make it appealing and inspiring. We just want to bring back the spark of farming at high school level,” he said.
Because it is a pilot project, they have decided to start with only two schools, Esizibeni Secondary in Memel and Evungwini Secondary in Vrede, where many learners have access to large yards or unused agricultural plots.
A hundred students from each school will each receive spinach, carrot, potato and cabbage seeds. The cooperative will also make training videos for its social media channels.
“We will have adjudicators from Phumelela Agri who will visit these gardens from time to time to look at the progress until harvest time. The winning garden will be judged on yields and good agricultural practice,” said Mtambo.
Prizes will include cash and school necessities such as uniforms, stationery and learning aides. “We have not yet determined what the cash amount will be, but we want to make it a significant amount of money which will go a long way in assisting these young people and motivate them to choose a career in agriculture,” said Mtambo.
“We hope this initiative will spark the interest and ensure that they are able to feed themselves. We don’t just want to give out food parcels but get them to think deeper and develop the spirit of self-reliance.”
