Neighbourhood Farm

“Hyper local organic urban farming where we work and live.”

During my early career as bush cook and presenter for Cooked I learned a lot about food, ingredients and cooking almost anything, anywhere. Those were the fun days – filled with road trips, friends and loads of beer. Years later, older and somewhat wiser, I embarked on a journey to film Cooked 5: Living Free to follow the story of our food from farm to table. After this experience I found that I was left with more questions than answers, and there were two in particular that lingered in my mind: “Where does my food come from, and what’s in it?” And so The Great Food Hoodwink was born, where I made it my mission to look more deeply into our food production and to share this with as many people I could. Fast forward another couple of years, and I realised that the only way to influence change in others, was to lead by example, and the seed for my latest project Neighbourhood Farm was planted.

Soil for Life

This is why I built my greenhouse and dug up my front lawn to create my garden . More than the idea of leading by example, I needed to prove to myself that this concept was achievable and viable, and although it took me a while to get right, it worked! Now, in order to make a real difference to the community, this knowledge needs to be made freely available and implemented, which is the goal of Neighbourhood Farm.

Images courtesy of Oranjezicht City Farm

The idea behind Neighbourhood Farm is to socially re-engineer and influence the urban mindset when it comes to food and the way we live and work in cities. While most city dwellers do the bare minimum to embrace a greener lifestyle, most of us have lost touch with our natural environments and don’t understand our true impact on the earth or even how fix this problem. Cities have placed massive demands on our rural environments, but I believe that cities can become part of a bigger environmental solution instead of being the massive problem they are today.

Neighbourhood Farm is simply a small seed that through physical action from my side can grow and influence others. 50 years ago most humans still lived self-sustaining rural lives, but as time ticked on, our landscapes changed into cityscapes and we evolved. It is estimated that by 2030 more than 2/3rds of humans will be city dwellers. This new biome, the realm of man with the city as its core must now be recognized as man’s largest communal area of activity and co-operation – our centres of learning, culture, hospitalization, employment and entertainment. But what also exists is a communal opportunity to make a difference through small steps toward bigger and better changes.The great thing is that it’s already happening with one of the best examples being the Oranjezight City Farm. We just need this on every available piece of land that there is.

Images courtesy of Oranjezicht City Farm

 Check out Neighbourhood Farm for all the updates.

“If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed;

if in terms of ten years, plant trees;

if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.”

– Confucius