Young Black Female South African Rooftop Farmer Hopes To Turn Concrete Jungle Green

JOHANNESBURG, 28 July (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Jul, 2021 ) -:It's a chilly Monday morning in Morningside, the richest suburb of Sandton municipality in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Zandile Kumalo, a young Black hydroponics farmer, is already at work on her rooftop garden.

The 29-year-old Kumalo told Anadolu Agency she was motivated to start the hydroponics farm on the concrete rooftop of Morningside Shopping Centre in Sandton after realizing she could supply fresh vegetables to those in her vicinity.

"My farm is on the rooftop of Morningside Shopping Centre, which houses several food chain stores and restaurants, so this was an ideal market. There is no transport cost for me," she said in an interview.

Kumalo, the holder of a diploma in analytical chemistry from the Vaal University of Technology, approached property development firm Flanagan & Gerard, the co-owners of Morningside Shopping Centre, to start the farm as its co-owners.

Kumalo grows a range of fresh vegetables such as baby spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers and some herbs.

"We harvest every week from our rooftop farm and supply our produce to shops downstairs," she said, adding her farm provides a reliable supply to her clients.

Kumalo's 300-square-meter (3,229-square-foot) farm -- Neighbour Roots hydroponic farm, is now the talk of town.

She has generated huge media interest being the first young Black woman to operate a rooftop hydroponics farm on a shopping center in Sandton and co-own such a farm in South Africa's most affluent district in a country where farming is largely dominated by white people.

Kumalo, who has been interested in farming since her university days, started her first hydroponics farm in her backyard in 2019, creating awareness of zero hunger in her community.

She told Anadolu Agency that her hope is to have more farms on rooftops in Sandton and to make the concrete jungle of rooftops greener.

"We are also working closely with schools to show them how tech agriculture works in urban farming," she said.