By creating a cooperative of 25 small farms, Tshwane’s Food and Energy Centre is securing its food and energy supply for generations to come.
The Tshwane Food and Energy Centre was established in 2015, providing small-scale farming opportunities to underprivileged people under a secondary cooperative model, incorporating synchronized production and centralized transactions. The Centre comprises 25 individual plots, where farmers tend to 60,000 chickens and manage 72,000 m2 of vegetable plots. By vertically integrating assets, the Centre is able to finance a hatchery and slaughterhouse, as well as vegetable processing, seedling production, crop farming, and feed mill facilities. By creating a supply of nourishing produce that is locally, organically, and sustainably produced, the Centre ensures food sovereignty and security for the local community and the region at large.
131 new jobs created by the Tshwane Food and Energy Centre
Cities100 – 2016
In addition to food production, the Tshwane Food and Energy Centre produces self-sustaining energy via a photovoltaic solar power plant and by reusing livestock organic waste as feedstock for the production of biogas. This both reduces energy costs and serves as another source of income, while ensuring energy security for current and future entrepreneurial farmers.
The challenge
Economic and energy poverty and food insecurity are already national crises in rural South Africa, without taking into account extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods caused by climate change. As one of the mayoral flagship projects, the Tshwane Food and Energy Centre is creating new opportunities for people from vulnerable communities to become small-scale entrepreneurial farmers, contributing to the food security of the region and establishing new sources of energy.
Co-benefits
Economic The Centre is structured so that participating entrepreneurial farmers become independent and self-sustaining, enabling the potential expansion of the model.
Environmental The organic agriculture techniques implemented at the Food and Energy Centre enhance soil fertility, making it less susceptible to erosion.
Health The Food and Energy Centre secures access to food, ensuring the community is getting the nourishment it needs.
Social The project will improve the capacity building of entrepreneurs in new ways of farming and business management.
About Tshwane
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality is the metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of northern Gauteng Province, South Africa. The Metropolitan area is centred on the city of Pretoria with surrounding towns and localities included into the local government area.
