Producing essential needs locally is a key tenet of localising, and this is particularly applicable to food production.

The GROW LOCAL! campaign will stimulate the diversification of food that is produced locally, support food growers that use organic methods, and encourage residents to grow at least a portion of their own food needs. This effort will play a significant role in adapting our local food system to an energy-constrained future.

Can Hout Bay feed itself from local sources if necessary in the future. At the moment, obviously not, but we can go a long way to being less dependent on food from distant sources and the community should take immediate steps to increase food production and preservation in many ways and at many levels, from household, to neighbourhoods, and the community.
 

Greening Hout Bay
Project to plant indigenous trees and beautify Hout Bay
 

‘Urbiculture’ Food Gardens 
in open spaces around Hout Bay
 

Click here to see our schedule of courses, training people in permaculture design, food growing skills and other food-garden related themes

Eat your Balcony
Just how much food can you grow on a tiled balcony? Perhaps you can fit a worm farm, a compost system, some water plants, a water feature, a cosy seat or two and a little outdoor table. We could grow beans and peas, herbs, pick n pluck salad gardens, herbs to make teas... all that and more. Discover how we can bring food production back to the city and start growing what we eat where we live.

Check out www.spiralseed.co.uk for more info and a handy book on the subject is available to order.
 

Eat your Kitchen
Learn to Sprout - it's so easy and will provide loads of delicious sprouts to add to your salads, sandwiches, soups, wraps, kids lunch boxes. Only takes a few days with a quick rinse each day and you have the most nutritious alive food your bodies ever had!
 

Worm Farming
Become an expert worm wrangler. Learn the secrets of success of happy, healthy worms who help you recycle waste from your kitchen and turn it into valuable organic fertiliser for your garden. No smells, no pests, no problems. See worm farms in action at Green Peas

 

Vision & Goals

• Encourage local residents to grow more of their own food in home and community gardens, community greenhouses, and community open spaces.

• Provide ongoing education in Permaculture and organic/bio-intensive gardening/food production methods.

• Stimulate volunteering at local farms

Strategies

Education and community outreach are perhaps the most essential strategies in an effective GROW LOCAL! campaign, and should be embedded in all other strategies and activities–e.g., teaching children how to dry fruits, planning a community garden with our neighbours, or working with the Parks board to increase farming acreage.

Involvement will be required from many sectors of the community, involving individuals, local businesses, non-profit organizations, and government entities. Each will have a role in producing solutions to this complex issue.
 

• Increase rural agricultural acreage including use of public (city, county) land.

• Maintain existing cultivated land through agricultural land trusts.

• Educate small-acreage farmers in successful business and management practices to ensure that they can continue operations.

• Work towards changes in zoning and property tax law to encourage food production.

• Support farmers with urban farm labour–youth, retired, unemployed.

• Broker loans/grants to farmers for equipment, seedstock, land purchases.

• Facilitate purchase of farmland by community groups, hiring of farmers/managers.

• Increase urban gardening acreage–parks, public spaces.

• Educate homeowners in successful gardening techniques and Permaculture.

• Plant orchards and edible landscapes on public land–street margins, parks–using heirloom and locally adapted stock.

• Work towards reductions in city water rates for food production and to increase irrigation allocations to give priority to human food production.

• Help to preserve existing farmland through conservation easements.

• Implement a new farmer incubation project to create partnerships among new sustainable agriculture farmers, experienced growers, and area food banks to provide fresh, organic, and locally grown produce to low-income community members. New farmers will receive technical assistance, a mentor, attend trade meetings, and will be paid market rates to deliver their produce according to a set crop schedule, thus bringing high quality food to the hungry and also preparing them to deliver to other clients such as restaurants and grocery retailers.