Oranjezicht City Farm for WDC2014

WORDS Maciek Dubla PHOTOS Oranjezicht City Farm and Maciek Dubla 

Lees in Afrikaans.

January 2014: The Oranjezicht City Farm is an official Cape Town World Design Capital 2014 project, with their successful weekly market flying the flag high. They’re also busy writing a book. Read more about it in the WILD DESIGN issue of VISI now on shelves.

2 November 2013: The Oranjezicht City Farm is turning one-year-old and invites everyone to come share their Charly’s Bakery birthday cake. They will also be planting 16 lime trees, for which they’d love a hand. We’re so proud that this wonderful project is transforming our Mother City!

February 2013: With numerous under-utilised public green spaces in Cape Town, Sheryl Ozinsky hopes to unite and educate communities through self-sustaining urban farms. Maciek Dubla talks to her about the Oranjezicht City Farm, the pilot project that’s planting the seed for many more farms around the city. 

Urban or city farms aren’t a new concept, globally. You can find them on rooftops in Bangkok, San Francisco and London, in numerous neighbourhoods around the US and along busy railway lines in Australia. In South Africa, the idea of urban farming has taken some time to take root and grow, but it’s about to gain momentum with the development of the Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF) – the first in a project that will hopefully grow into 20 city farms throughout Cape Town.

Sheryl Ozinsky, one of the project champions, meets me onsite at the farm located between Sidmouth Avenue and Upper Orange Street. While still being laid out, the basic design is in place and the beds are being sown with vegetable seeds by one of the farmers, Johannes, an ex-miner from Limpopo. Local residents hatched the idea of the project some years ago, but Sheryl’s passion for the OZCF is still strong. 

“We have an ambitious vision, but when you plant a seed and the community nurtures and waters it, then you can do anything,” she explains while overlooking the farm. “It’s going to take partnerships, sweat, dirty boots and green fingers, but worthwhile it is.”

The OZCF is a non-profit project that aims to celebrate both food and community. Using the tagline “From Bowling Green to Bowl of Greens”, the site of the OZCF comprises part of the original “Oranje Zigt Farm” established in 1709, making it one of many heritage sites around Cape Town. Through education, design and vegetable gardening, the project hopes that it will act as a catalyst for skills development, education about food and environmental issues, and a showcase for what can be done with unused or under-utilised public green spaces in the city.

Most importantly for Sheryl, the OZCF is about building social cohesion, and reconnecting the residents of this suburb and, in time, other suburbs and its communities. “This is about building relationships between people from all parts of this beautiful city. That’s the beauty of something like this,” she says distracted by the view of the city just past the farm and a fregate in harbour. “It’s a catalyst for relationship building, nutrition, health, treading lightly on the planet and seeing that there is another way to be in the world. It’s about neighbours meeting for the first time while bending over to plant a Moroccan mint – how wonderful is that?” 

The design of the OZCF reflects its context in time. Mark Stead of Derrick Integrated Communication and Tanya de Villiers of CNdV Africa played a key role in ensuring that the farm was inspired by its existing context – a 16th-century Dutch garden. 

Looking to the Dutch East India Company markings and symbols for inspiration, they found the diamond shape that runs as a thread through the project, from the logo to the centrepiece of the farm. The vegetable beds will be protected from the wind by hedges of herbs including thyme, lavender and rosemary, and they hope to tap into the fresh water springs that run through the area to irrigate the plants. 

Walking along the pathways, Sheryl explains that this is only a pilot project; each community is different. “We may have found what works for Oranjezicht, but each community is different and what works here, may not work somewhere else.”

They have already been approached by the Bo-Kaap and Three Anchor Bay to start farms in those areas. “Passion and enthusiasm are important ingredients,” Sheryl smiles. “If that is available in tons and mixed with a bit of compost, one can make miracles.” 

If you’d like to volunteer onsite, contribute funds, product or equipment or just want to find out more about the project, visit their website at www.ozcf.co.za or follow their progress on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OZCFarm.