GeoJournal 30.1 2 1 - 2 8 21 © 1993 (May) by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Urban Agriculture in South Africa: Scope, Issues and Potential

Rogerson, C. M., Prof. Dr., University of the Witwatersrand, Department of Geography, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the present state of urban agriculture in South Africa and analyses its potential for poverty alleviation. Currently, the scale of cultivation taking place in South Africa is relatively small as compared to other developing countries. The key explanation for the undeveloped urban agricultural sector is the greater returns to land and labour which may be earned from backyard shacks and alternative informal income opportunities in the city. Informal cultivation is primarily a survival niche of the most marginalized and most vulnerable groups in urban areas, in particular for elderly women. Policy issues are raised concerning urban agriculture in post apartheid urban reconstruction.

Introduction

New research on alleviating poverty in cities of the developing world highlights the increasingly important role played by urban agriculture. In one recent study (conducted for the International Labour Organization) the encouragement of food production in cities was described as an "unconventional proposal" for addressing issues of urban poverty and unemployment in the Third World (Singh 1989, p. 37). The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) urged governments across the developing world to "consider supporting urban agriculture" (WCED 1987, p. 254). It stated that: Officially sanctioned and promoted urban agriculture could become an important component of urban development and make more food available to the urban poor. The primary purpose of such promotion should be to improve the nutritional and health standards of the poor, help their family budgets (50-70 per cent of which is usually spent on food), enable them to earn some additional income, and provide employment. Urban agriculture can also provide fresher and cheaper produce, more green space, the clearing of garbage dumps and recycling of household waste (WCED, 1987, p. 254).

During the 1980s urban agriculture was placed on the policy agenda by the emphasis accorded to strategies for 'sustainable development ' in general and 'sustainable cities' in particular. The question of urban food supplies was identified as one of the leading 'pressure points' for managing poverty in developing world cities (Stren 1992, p. 2; White and Whitney 1992, p. 16). Moreover, the promotion of food production in cities was interpreted as a

central plank of new policies for urban self-reliance in developing countries (Gutman 1986, 1987). Smit and Nasr (1992, p. 152) see ecologically sustainable urbanization as "inconceivable without urban and peri-urban agriculture". Other observers acknowledged, that even if in many cities total self-sufficiency was an impossible goal, it still was necessary to understand and seek to extend the degree of urban food self-reliance (Sachs and Silk 1987). Moreover, it was also conceded that urban cultivation did not constitute a short-term solution for the nutritional deficiencies of the urban poor; instead, it represented a complement rather than replacement for programmes of income redistri- bution (Gutman 1986, p. 24).

Several studies disclosed that urban cultivation was not merely a 'pleasant' or 'subsidiary' practice in the developing world (Rakodi 1985; Sanyal 1985, 1986). Instead, it was shown to be % critical part of developing more productive and viable urban habitats" (Wade 1986, p. 32). The major advantage of urban agriculture was seen as its potential to improve the socio-economic situation of the poor. As Sachs and Silk (1987, p. 3) argue, urban cultivation can furnish % significant contribution to the poorest of the poor, for whom small amounts of food . . . can make a crucial difference". Beyond direct economic benefits accruing to low-income households from self-help production, however, are additional benefits "that may ultimately be the most significant in shaping a positive future for Third World cities" (Wade 1986, p. 31). Specific attention is drawn to the powerful psychological impact of successful community-based efforts at food production

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(Wade 1987). In addition, the encouragement of urban cultivation is recognized as conferring many advantages to cities from an ecological viewpoint in terms of resource conservation, waste recycling and reducing the need for environmentally and economically expensive transporta- tion of perishable food commodities (Deelstra 1987; Douglass 1989; Smit and Nasr 1992). It has been suggested that "urban agriculture is the largest and most efficient tool available to transform urban wastes into food and jobs, with by-products of an improved living environment, better public health, energy savings, natural resource savings and urban management cost reductions" (Smit and Nasr 1992, p. 152).

Issues concerning sustainable urban development must be part of the policy agenda for post-apartheid reconstruction in South Africa (Rogerson 1992a). Moreover, in an economic climate of recession combined with escalating food prices (Kelly 1992a), questions surrounding food supplies for cities are beginning to surface as matters of policy concern (Rogerson 1992 b, 1993). The objective in this paper is to present findings on the current state of urban agriculture in South Africa and analyse its potential role in poverty alleviation. This task necessitates two major sections of discussion. First, a review is undertaken of research and policy initiatives concerning urban cultivation in the developing world. Second, against a background of new debates regarding the management of South African cities, the situation of urban agriculture is investigated.

Urban Agriculture in the Developing World

While 'urban agriculture' is a new concept in development policy and planning, the practice of cultivation within the boundaries of cities in the developing world is well-established (Ninez 1985; Vasey 1985). With economic recession, structural adjustment programmes and the crises of the 19808 and 19908, the cultivation of food crops in public and private open spaces is both widespread and economically significant in urban areas throughout the Third World (Sanyal 1985; Drakakis- Smith 1991). At certain periods of the year, especially the seasonal rainfall peak, "many urban centres are transformed by armies of 'urban farmers' tilling the open spaces to produce flourishing vegetable gardens and fields of grains and fruit" (Lado 1990, p. 257).

The research of Yeung (1985, 1986, 1987) examines the role and significance of agriculture in urban Asia and the Pacific. To many Asian decision-makers, agriculture in the urban setting is viewed as despoiling "the image of the modernizing Westernized city that the planners wish to convey to the outside world" (Drakakis-Smith 1991, p. 51). Accordingly, with a policy climate of repression prevailing in some countries, investment in urban agriculture is low and seen as something to be minimized (Yeung 1987, p. 15). But in other parts of Asia, the position of urban cultivation reflects re-consideration of the age-old concept of the city

as a non-agricultural entity and of new policy-making to incorporate agriculture as a basic part of the urban economy (Yeung 1988). This re-thinking on the role of agriculture in Asian cities is underpinned by growing concern for questions of urban food supply (Yeung 1985, 1988). In addition, it stemmed from an imperative to plan food production as part of a future "sustainable" urban development in terms of resources and ecology (Panjwani 1986; Douglass 1989; Smit and Nasr 1992). For example, to combat environmental degradation, high unemployment levels and heavy dependence on imported food supplies, the city of Lae, Papua New Guinea, implemented a comprehensive resource-conserving strategy which encompassed a plan to augment food production (Wade Yeung 1987).

Efforts to spur urban agriculture in Asia have been mounted in several countries and take a variety of directions. Policy initiatives at the small scale include encouraging home gardens as part of broader national programmes targeted at food self-sufficiency (Yeung 1987) and making available idle and unused land for food cultivation (Yeung 1985; Wade 1987). Large-scale systematic planning for food production within urban areas has been largely confined to east Asia (Yeung 1992). As Yeung (1988, p. 80) notes "Chinese cities, the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore, and other Asian cities with large Chinese populations have distinguished themselves by having adopted a sound and ecologically balanced approach to efficient food production" (Yeung 1988, p. 80). In China, for instance, intensive livestock farming and vegetable production are integrated into an ecological complex which involves the recycling of nightsoil and rubbish produced by the urban population (Yeung 1992, p. 266). As a result of these initiatives many large Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, are totally self-sufficient in vegetables, most grain crops and produce significant quantities of meat (pork, poultry) and other foods (Yeung 1987, p. 17).

In urban Africa subsistence cultivation is widely interpreted as an essential component of everyday survival. Indeed, the practice of "urban agriculture is both prevalent and economically significant" (Freeman 1991, p. 2). Guyer (1987, p. 13) estimates that as much as 10 to 25 percent of the urban population in Africa "may be involved in some sort of agriculture". Other researchers suggest that in Kenya and Tanzania "two out of three urban families are engaged in farming" (Smit and Nasr 1992, p. 42). Typically, in Tanzania, "every open space, utility service reserve, road, valley or garden in the towns has been taken up for planting of all sorts of seasonal and permanent crops, ranging from vegetables, maize, bananas, to fruit trees" (Mosha 1991, p. 84). The expansion in farming as both a part-time and full-time occupation for African urban households has been tracked in several investigations. Research in East Africa suggests that the widespread invasion of urban areas by subsistence agriculture is symptomatic of the economic collapse in Uganda (Bibangambah 1992) and Tanzania (Mlozi et al. 1992). Even

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in Nairobi, Kenya, there is a considerable weight of evidence to confirm that informal urban cultivation of open space is markedly on the increase in this so-termed 'city of farmers' (Lado 1990; Freeman 1991). It has been observed that "there are few areas of the city of Nairobi where the activities of urban farmers cannot be observed" (Freeman 1991, p.2). In Lilongwe, Malawi, Ports (1989, p. 331) records that many of the public open spaces in the city "are used as informal gardens, particularly for maize production". Again, in Harare, home gardens are seen as a vital source of subsistence food production for the city's poorest populations (Drakakis-Smith 1992); since the mid- 1970s an expansion of informal cultivation also has taken place in the shallow valleys occupying the city's periphery (Mazambani 1982,1986). Urban cultivation reaches its most striking extent in the case of the 'garden city' of Lusaka, where nearly 60 percent of low-income households were estimated as cultivating food gardens (Sanyal 1985, 1986; Jaeger and Huckabay 1986). In fact, the expansion of urban agriculture in Lusaka has been so extensive that the city has been described as "the world capital of urban cultivation" (Sanyal 1986, p. 7).

The advance of urban cultivation and its growing significance in African cities has occurred much to the surprise and embarrassment of proponents of modernization, ranging from city officials to international aid donors (Sanyal 1985; Mascarenhas 1986). Contrary to popular opinion this process of the 'ruralization' of developing world cities is not the consequence of mass rural-urban migration. Sanyal (1987, p. 198) interprets the post-1980 upsurge of cultivation by the urban poor in Africa is an innovative response from below to the decline of formal urban economies; this response "reduces their vulnerability to the fluctuations of fortune that currently beset the economies of developing countries' cities". The findings of research on urban farmers in Nairobi and Lusaka demonstrate clearly that "urban cultivation is not practised exclusively or even primarily by recent migrants" (Sanyal 1985, p. 18). Instead, the majority of farmers originate from poor households who are fully entrenched in the urban economy. A profile of urban cultivators in Kenya shows that "average length of urban farmers' residence was 20.4 years, 85% had resided in the city for at least five years, 57.5 % had been living there for 15 years or more, while 15% had dwelt there for more than 40 years" (Lado 1990, p. 262). Likewise, the cultivation taking place in Harare is primarily conducted by low-income families who grow focd crops for domestic consumption and sale (Mazambani 1982, 1986; Drakakis-Smith 1992). In Nairobi the vast majority of cultivated plots "are creations of the very poor, and represent a major source of subsistence for the urban underclasses" (Freeman 1991, p. 87). Research on urban cultivation in both Kenya and Zambia underlines the vital role of women as major food producers (Rakodi 1988a, 1988b; Lado 1990). For example, Stren (1991) records the findings of a study in which the majority of women urban farmers in Kenya said they would starve or suffer considerably without urban agriculture. In the case

of Lusaka, farming is a particularly important survival activity for groups of low-income women with limited schooling or marketable skills in the formal economy (Rakodi 1985, 1988 a, 1988 b).

In summary, Asian research underlines that intensive urban agriculture can be highly successful and despite lack of official support several Asian cities "have produced effectively within their spatial confines" (Yeung 1986, p. 28). By contrast, in Africa "the picture that emerges is essentially one of a family subsistence-oriented urban agricultural sector" with the mass of cultivators pursuing farming in cities "out of sheer necessity, the alternative being the threat of hunger, malnutrition, and even starvation of the cultivators and/or their families" (Freeman 1991, p. 110). Moreover, the produce and revenues of urban agriculture constitute a much-required source of income and nutrition for the urban poor, especially for the growing numbers of women-headed households in the African city. Finally, throughout Africa urban agriculture has emerged as a critical variable in sustainable urbanization (Wekwete 1992, p. 131).

Notwithstanding its growing significance in developing world cities, urban cultivation frequently has met with official hostility and repression (Sanyal 1987; Potts 1989; Drakakis-Smith 1991; Rogerson 1993). Lee-Smith and Stren (1992, 33) note: "neither land-use planning nor urban management are traditionally geared to coping with urban food production". But, as researchers during the 1980s highlighted the benefits of urban farming, attitudes and policies gradually changed towards at least the benign acceptance of the activities of cultivators. Several analysts support the contention that not only should the harassment of cultivators be stopped but also active steps should be taken to encourage the practice of urban agriculture (Wade 1986; Sachs and Silk 1987; Smit and Nasr 1992). Among a range of suggested policy interventions are measures inter alia that provide greater assurance to low income households, including the granting of legal titles to cultivators either for renting, leasing or owning land; the development of appropriate cultivation techniques; the provision in urban areas of government farm extension assistance packages; and direct assistance to cultivators in the form of improving water supplies or relieving shortages of seeds and planting materials (see Lado 1990; Freeman 1991). In designing 'progressive' programmes to assist local urban food production Wade (1986, 1987) recommends a review of existing land use policies and their replacement by four sets of guidelines namely: plan for temporary land use, multiple use of land, maximum use of land, and upgrading of low-income settlements. Beyond changes in land use policy, sugggestions have also been made for evolving more flexible water and waste-management policies that might enhance the potential for community food production (Smit and Nasr 1992).

The overall policy direction is moving in favour of creating more supportive environments for the practice of urban cultivation. Nonetheless, Rakodi (1985) cautions policy-makers that while food production provides a

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crucial or at least useful food supplement for many families, at present there is insufficient available information to evaluate the extent to which urban food production can satisfy household basic needs. Accordingly, it is contended that prior to advocating more widespread cultivation, it is essential to evaluate its benefits as compared to alternative economic opportunities which might be made available through other initiatives. In particular, it is necessary to assess its impact upon low income women, who conduct most of the work of urban agriculture, and assess its benefits vis-a-vis alternative strategies for augmenting the incomes of poor households (Rakodi 1985).

Urban Cultivation in South Africa

Until recently, little was known concerning the actual extent, workings or significance of urban agriculture in South Africa Food issues have, however, attracted growing concern alongside surging food prices, particularly since 1989, which reached an annual rate of over 30 increase in 1992 (Kelly 1992 a). Short-term factors accounting for these inflationary food costs are the impact of a devastating drought and the replacement in October 1991 of a general sales tax (which had exempted a range of foodstuffs) by a value added tax with only minimal exemptions on food. More important in understanding food price rises is the long-term structural deficiencies of monopoly control of the food chain by inefficient (and sometimes corrupt) state-run agricultural marketing boards and municipal controlled produce markets (Kelly 1992 a). For the urban poor, the consequences of these rises in food costs have been devastating. For example, in Cape Town it is common now for poor urban households to spend an estimated 40 to 50% of their income on food purchases (Eberhard 1989 a, p. 1).

A number of initiatives have been launched to galvanize subsistence food production in South African urban areas and to assess its potential for meeting the basic needs of the poor (Eberhard 1989 a, 1989 b, 1989 c, 1989 d, 1989e; Kelly 1992b; Raphaely 1992). This research is reported below. In broad policy terms, however, the situation of urban agriculture in South Africa must be viewed first as one element for managing poverty in the cities. In a fluid and changing political dispensation new initiatives are emerging and proposed for addressing poverty. The role of urban agriculture must be understood in the context of this shifting urban management agenda.

Changes and Challenges of Urban Management

In recent history, the management of South Africa's cities has been driven by the policy imperatives of segregation and apartheid rather than by the concern to create healthy, viable and sustainable city environments

(Dewar 1991a). Indeed, as urban management policies under apartheid were led by the demands of the dominant classes, they failed to deliver any programmes to address seriously the problems of growing communities of poor inhabitants in South Africa's cities. Moreover, in a number of studies, Dewar (1984, 1991a, 1992) shows how the inherent characteristics of the apartheid urban form - sprawl, fragmentation and separation - aggravate the everyday problems of the poor.

During the 1980s the urban policy climate in South Africa began to shift. The agenda of urban management grudgingly began to accord recognition to new policies that might, for the first time, seek to incorporate the needs of the country's urban poor (Rogerson 1992 a). This changed policy agenda was associated with the 'reformist' political initiatives of P. W. Botha which embodied an acceptance of the inevitability of expanded levels of black urbanization. In particular, the shedding of influx control in 1986 necessitated the innovation of a set of new policy initiatives which might maximise the benefits of urbanization for purposes of political stability. Further stimulus for a new urban management agenda derived from F. W. de Klerk's historic 2 February 1990 initiatives which set South Africa on a course towards a non-racial democracy.

In the 1990s and beyond the planners and policy- makers of the new South Africa inevitably must undo and rectify past policy neglect and omission towards the country's urban poor (Rogerson 1992 a). At the same time they confront the challenge of managing a situation of rapid urban expansion. The Urban Foundation (1990) projects that the total population of the Pretoria- Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV) region, the country's economic heartland, will rise from 7 million in 1985 to 12.3 million by 2000 and reach 16.5 million by 2010. Considerable new urban population growth is also anticipated over the next 20 years in South Africa's second and third ranked metropolitan areas. Metropolitan Durban, one of the world's fastest growing cities during the 1970s, is projected to expand from 2.6 million in 1985 to 4.4 million by 2000 and spiralling to 6 million people by 2010. Metropolitan Cape Town, which appears to have overtaken Durban as South Africa's fastest growing urban region, is expected to grow from 2.2 million in 1985 to 3.3 million by 2000 and to reach a total of 4 million population by 2010. Overall, the Urban Foundation (1990) estimates that the total population of South Africa's major metropolitan areas - the PWV complex, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Pietermaritzburg, East London, the Orange Free State Goldfields region and Bloemfontein - is expected to increased almost threefold during the period 1980-2000.

Although a process of rural-urban migration continues to augment this urban growth, it is evident that natural increase now constitutes the main element in this population expansion (Urban Foundation 1990). Most importantly, the highest rates of growth are amongst the poorest populations: "the dominant demographic

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tendencies are faster, younger and poorer, resulting in high and increasing levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality within the cities" (Dewar 1991 a, p. 91). The new changes in the political climate in South Africa are necessary conditions for improving the lives of the urban poor but, as Dewar (1991 b, p. 98) points out, they are by no means sufficient ones. What is urgently required is the development and vigorous implementation of new programmes to 'spearhead a war against poverty' in the cities (Dewar 1991b, p. 98).

It is against this backdrop of '"redefining the urban game" (Dewar 1992, p. 254) and of new policy thinking towards poverty in South Africa's cities that calls have been sounded for permitting or even encouraging urban agriculture. Dewar (1992, p. 250) argues that the managers of South African cities must be sensitive to accommodating the use of 'nature' by the poor in their struggle to meet basic needs The promotion of urban agriculture is therefore seen as significant in South Africa especially in light of scenarios that, due to lack of alternative forms of income generation, "many people will have no option but to seek, either in a primary or supplementary way, sustenance from the soil" (Dewar and Uytenbogaardt 1991, p. 63). In a study on metropolitan Cape Town, it was argued in similar fashion that, given current limitations on expected job creation in the formal economy, "there is no doubt that many people will have to turn to the primary resources of the region in order to survive" (Dewar and Watson 1991, p. 191).

The Scope and Potential for Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture in South Africa is not a phenomenon of recent origin. Beavon and Elder (1991) document the widespread practice of maintaining cattle and of associated °backyard dairies' in Johannesburg during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Moreover, the covert practice of keeping chickens or cattle in the nooks and crannies of urban township areas away from the predations of ever-vigilant health inspectors is an essential part of the history of South Africa's informal economy. The archival records of inspections made by officials of the Johannesburg health department make frequent reference to "unsightly fowl houses" and to township dwellers' practice of keeping poultry during the late 1940s (see IAD/ CJ 12/17/9 Report of Acting Medical Officer of Health to Manager, Non-European Affairs Department, 18 March 1949). The persistence of agriculture in the cities is evidenced by the fact that the keeping of livestock - particularly cattle, sheep or goats - remains an enduring element of the blighted environments of South Africa's black urban townships (Molefe 1991). In addition, the practice of subsistence food production in home gardens is clearly apparent in many of the informal settlements that have burgeoned in and around the country's major metropolitan areas over the past two decades.

Broadly, the contemporary growth of urban cultivation in South Africa may be interpreted as a consequence of two sets of processes, namely spontaneous expansion and of planned promotional efforts. Spontaneous growth takes place particularly in and around idle lands on the fringes of metropolitan areas. For example, at Mamelodi, close to Pretoria, elderly and unemployed women "have planted the township's vacant and unused land with maize, wild spinach and groundnuts" (Matlala 1990, p. 30). The expansion of this form of informal cultivation is underpinned by motives for economic survival and enables poor households to secure food for own consumption as well as to produce small amounts for sale. One women informal cultivator said:

As we are widowed and unemployed women, we find it very difficult to feed our children properly. But because we produce some maize from our plots we are at least able to give our hungry children some food (cited by Matlala 1990, p. 31).

It has been observed that "as one moves from one end of Mamelodi to the other, one sees this endless green belt of maize, made up of plots of all sizes" (Matlala 1990, p. 31). Land utilized for agriculture comprises unused areas earmarked for future new residential development, land unsuitable for housing along river banks and small patches of vacant land such as next to the cemetery. The practice of informal cultivation at Mamelodi is, however, generating conflict with harassment by the town council as property- developers move in "with earth-moving equipment, destroying the crops to make way for houses" (Matlala 1990, p 31). Plots are frequently destroyed without consultation with the women cultivators who thus often wake up one morning to find their crops have gone. As urban development proceeds at an expanding rate, access to vacant land for cultivation by poor households becomes more difficult and only those "who are on land not suitable for housing stand a chance of being left alone" (Matlala 1990, p. 31). With rising food prices and low incomes, the loss of these crops has grave implications for these women and their households, threatening an already tenuous hold on survival in the city and raising the spectre of urban malnutrition.

The practice of low-cost food gardening within urban townships has been planned and encouraged by several different agencies, both official and non-governmental. The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) has granted financial support for a number of small food producing schemes in cities (DBSA 1991, p. 28). In Cape Town the city authorities have undertaken an extensive investigation into the feasibility and prospects of urban agriculture as a strategy for poverty alleviation (Eberhard 1989b, 1989 d). In Durban the community social work section of the city council has become involved in a number of small community gardening projects These projects include demonstration gardens at family health clinics and home visits by health educators, including the initiation of home vegetable gardens; projects are situated variously on municipal land, some private property and at clinics or factory premises (Eberhard 1989 a, pp. 35-36).

26 GeoJournal 30.1/1993

More important than official initiatives are the varied activities of non-governmental organizations (NGO) which have sought to organize subsistence food production in urban areas (Kelly 1992 b). At Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg, the African Tree Centre promotes the concept of trench gardening as a means for combatting poverty amongst the urban poor (Scott 1991). In Cape Town, the Catholic Welfare Bureau, a church-based NGO, has initiated food producing schemes in the city's black townships in the belief that intensive, low cost organic vegetable gardening can provide nutritional food for the poor (Eberhard 1989 d). At Nyanga and Khayelisha garden centres were established in order to encourage low cost intensive vegetable gardening techniques (Eberhard 1989d, 10). Another church-based agency has been responsible for founding community gardens, which are large gardens cultivated by organized groups of people, at the small towns of Montagu and Ashton in Cape Province (Eberhard 1989 e).

Finally, at several locations throughout South Africa, the Food Gardens Foundation is active in popularizing its sustainable method for trench gardening (Raphaely 1992). This involves digging knee deep a bed the size of a door, which is then half-filled with rubbish, topped with soil and covered with a blanket of mulch (Raphaely 1992, p. 1). The agency's mission statement is "to teach people to help themselves by growing essential food and thus improving their health and quality of life" (Food Gardens Unlimited 1990, p. 1). The target group is "the poorest of the poor" (Food Gardens Foundation 1991, p. 1) aiming to provide them "with a productive outlet of activity, and increase the levels of disposable income within the household" (Davidson 1990, p. 1). In Soweto the food gardens are attached to clinics or to the property of social welfare organizations. The community of gardeners are long-term urban residents, mostly widowed pensioners, with little income and scant alternative household income opportunities (Kelly 1992b, p. 12).

The experience of these urban projects so far has been uneven, pointing to certain limitations on the potential for subsistence agriculture in the South African context. A key limitation upon food producing projects in the large metropolitan areas is the opportunity costs for land. Urban farming competes directly for scarce city space with the pressing demands for shelter for the poor. In the black townships of South Africa's largest cities building a backyard shack to accommodate lodgers can earn more income (and with a greater certainty of return) than committing land to vegetable production (Eberhard 1989 b, 1989 c). Moreover, with the possible exception of groups of elderly widows, the labour expended on farming can be better deployed in one of a range of more lucrative income-earning pursuits in the mushrooming informal economies of South African cities (Rogerson 1992 c). One attempt to calculate the economics of vegetable gardening concluded that the value of food that could be produced by an average home garden in Cape Town was currently "economically insignificant" (Eberhard 1989b, p. 1). Even

assuming favourable circumstances for production, the amount that could be produced was estimated as meeting only half of the minimum vegetable requirements for a household of five; in monetary terms, this represented less than 1 percent of the monthly budget of a household living at a minimum subsistence level (Eberhard 1989 c, p. i). Undoubtedly, as Eberhard (1989 b, 1989 c, 1989 d) argues, the present opportunitY costs of urban land and labour do not favour food production except for the most economically marginalized and vulnerable communities.

Beyond the current economics of urban agriculture, another set of important factors that explain the disappointingly poor participation rates recorded in many projects relates to questions of community participation and development (Kelly 1992 b). The work of Moser (1989) unpacks the meaning and significance for urban projects of successful community participation. In most South African urban agriculture projects community participation is almost entirely absent in the planning and decision- making aspects of schemes (Eberhard 1989 b; Kelly 1992 b). Lack of consultation with residents has led to a host of problems surrounding the operation of projects. Some of the 'top-down', mainly white-run, foodproducing projects were rejected by black communities as 'patronising' (Eberhard 1989a). In Cape Town, certain church-run initiatives to spur cultivation, suffered from limited community involvement and lacked legitimacy in the host communities (Eberhard 1989 d). Similarly, in Soweto, the objectives of the food gardens programme have not been realised again due partially to the absence of community support (Kelly 1992 b). Finally, lack of community support, exacerbated by the alienation of communities (due to high levels of violence and crime), has made many gardening projects vulnerable to pilferage and vandalism (Eberhard 1989 b, p. 7). This fact points to a need for 'defensible community spaces' in order for future gardening projects to enjoy any hope of success.

The vital role of community participation is demonstrated by the relative success of the urban agriculture projects functioning at the small towns of Montagu and Ashton (Eberhard 1989e). The NGO working in these towns is committed to a philosophy of grassroots community participation in decision-making and planning and to the principle of community empowerment. The goal of the garden projects is not to give a 'charity handout' to alleviate poverty; instead, their objective is to meet both a need for production of food and, importantly, to develop the resources of the community so that the root causes of poverty are addressed (Eberhard 1989e, p. 1). The success of community gardens in these small towns is thus initimately linked to their broader role in community development. As Eberhard (1989 b, p. 9) observes, the key lesson is to adhere to accepted community development processes; "the major benefit from the garden is not the physical produce, but the processes involved in the establishment and running of a garden which facilitates the development of the community".

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Conclusion

At present , the scale o f urban cult ivation taking place in South Africa is relat ively small as compared to the s i tuat ion in o ther developing countries, especially in Africa. The key explanat ion for the undeve loped agricultural sector in cities lies in the greater re turns to land and labour which may be earned f rom backyard shacks and al ternative informal income oppor tuni t ies in the South African city. Currently, therefore informal cult ivation is pr imari ly the domain o f the mos t marginal ized and mos t vulnerable groups in urban areas, in part icular for elderly women . It is clear that agriculture in the South African city is only a survival niche and that it has l imi ted prospects as a means for resolving the immedia t e p rob lems o f urban poverty. I t would require a dramat ic de ter iora t ion in the economic circumstances of the poor and hyper- inf la t ion o f food prices for small-scale vegetable product ion to make an impact on the househo ld budgets o f the poor (Eberhard 1989 c).

Despi te these comment s , there remain strong grounds for cont inuing efforts to ex tend the prospects for agriculture in the South African city Most important ly , the urban managers of the new South Africa mus t confront the

needs o f growing numbe r s o f poor househo lds in a scenario o f l imi ted formal e m p l o y m e n t oppor tuni t ies and mount ing pressures on the absorpt ive capacity o f the more lucrative informal income pursui ts (Rogerson 1992c). Addit ional ly, the in ternat ional record points to the impor tance of urban agriculture as one e l emen t in moving towards sustainable cities, a t heme crucial for policy- makers in pos t -apar the id urban recons t ruc t ion (Rogerson 1992 a). Cer ta in lessons for f raming future policy init iatives for urban cult ivat ion in South Africa can be g leaned f rom the exper ience o f o ther countr ies (Rogerson 1993). At the urban per iphery several possible measures can be appl ied to provide greater assurance for informal cultivators. With in the city essential prerequis i tes for successful garde- ning projects are the exis tence o f defensible communi ty spaces and the need for communi ty invo lvement f rom the earliest stages o f decis ion-making and planning.

Acknowledgemen t s

Thanks are due to the Centre for Science Deve lopmen t , Pretor ia for financial suppor t o f my research. Opinions expressed in this paper are those o f the author.

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