Neighbourhood Farm Kommetjie

Neighbourhood Farm is a registered Public Benefit Organization and NPO that grows food, minds and community in the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. We believe that a social enterprise, underpinned by a mosaic of urban farms, can help all Capetonians, from school children to grandparents, to create a living legacy for our children’s children.

Neighbourhood Farm, with funding received from the Western Cape Premier’s office and the Department of Agriculture for its South Peninsula Pilot Project, has installed market gardens; neighbourhood markets and outdoor classrooms at schools and the False Bay Hospital in the South Peninsula of Cape Town, inclusive of regenerative, biologically diverse environments, as part of a larger vision of creating a wellbeing economy.

We build outdoor classrooms at schools to give our teachers and community members a tactile learning environment where they can integrate food re-education in the outdoors. It’s a space where geography, science, biology, economics and food consciousness can be brought to life in a biologically diverse environment. Around the classroom, we design, install and manage sustainable permaculture gardens, complete with fruit bearing trees, indigenous gardens and spaces for children to feel safe in.

The economic heart of the project is the market-garden. Beyond showing children how food should and can be grown, it provides a small revenue stream from distributing and selling nutrient dense organic food into both the school and the local community. This in turn creates hyper-local employment and empowers the community through skills-based training and hands on experience. Collectively, this makes the gardens sustainable, but in the medium term has a positive effect on the health and wellbeing of all.

Collectively, this allows us to connect children and community members in urban environments to where their food actually comes from; how to grow their own food and become food based entrepreneurs; provided a platform for educators to integrate education into the outdoors; provide nutrient dense organic produce to community members at affordable prices; provide a roadmap for other communities to replicate our success and create their own wellbeing economies. This, in amongst other benefits, promotes local socio-economic development; food security, healthy eating and safe food provision by making schools and hospitals social enterprise and community hubs.

Kommetjie Primary Shop, Kirsten Avenue (opp Shell garage) open Monday to Sunday.