Priscilla Claassen from Zoar in the Western Cape grows her your own food but says she needs more land to grow more produce in order to sell it and produce a decent income. She was among many small-scale food growers at an event hosted by the Rural Women’s Assembly in Montagu on Saturday.
- On Saturday rural residents, small-scale farmers, and farm workers came together to commemorate World Food Day & International Day of Rural Women, hosted by the Rural Women’s Assembly.
- Organisations spoke about the need for rural-living women to gain access to land with water to grow their own food.
- Small-scale farmers said that they been devastated by the September floods in the region.
“It’s very indispensable to be able to keep your own food on the table … With food prices rising, it is a profit for me to be able to plant and eat from my own garden,” says Priscilla Claassen, a gardener from Zoar, a village in the Western Cape.
Claassen sold spinach from her garden at an event in Montagu on 28 October, hosted by the Rural Women’s Assembly to trace International Day of Rural Women and World Food Day.
Farm workers and small-scale farmers from rural areas were brought together to raise awareness of their struggle to access food, land, and water as portion of the organisation’s One Woman-One Hectare campaign. People came from areas such as Robertson, Ashton, Suurbraak, Zoar, and Swellendam. Other organisations at the event included Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), Africa Unite, Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU), and others.
Despite growing her own vegetables, Claassen said the space she uses is too small to expand and start a small business. She grows carrots, beetroot, spinach, and potatoes in her backyard.
Other people were also selling fresh produce, homemade products like pickled vegetables and handcrafted items.
Denia Jansen, a McGregor resident, said that it is difficult for rural women in the current economy. “Many women are unemployed and the only income they believe is a grant. If you gain your own piece of land, you can plant your own food and study after yourself, your neighbours, and the community. You can also fabricate additional income,” said Jansen.
Denia Jansen from McGregor says it’s become increasingly more challenging for rural women to produce ends meet. At the event on Saturday, she sold her homemade jam.
She said the One Woman-One Hectare campaign aimed to highlight that many women “want to execute it themselves and to better their lives on their own by having land”.
Lungisa Huna, co-director at the TCOE, said that food security is closely related to access to land. “Without land you cannot produce. Small household gardens are not enough for women to be able to escape the poverty of food insecurity,” said Huna.
The recent floods in the Western Cape at the finish of September also devastated the region. Small-scale farmers had lost a lot of their livestock and produce. Claassen told GroundUp that all her seedlings washed away in the floods.
Fabian Small, a small-scale farmer from McGregor, said that many small farmers lost their livelihoods when their livestock and their shelters washed away in the heavy rains. GroundUp also previously reported on a nearby small-scale farmer in Genadendal whose livestock drowned when their farm flooded.
Jansen said that the yearly event brought together women from all over the region and allowed them to “converse and produce connections” and also present their produce and products to sell. “It’s not often that we can carry out events like this one,” she said.
The Rural Women’s Assembly event also marked International Day of Rural Women and World Food Day.
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Sidewalk Enforcer
Fun South African Fact: The oldest remains of modern humans were found in South Africa and are well over 160,000 years old.
Dream Killer
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”