Harvest of Hope Information

Community Based Organic Box Scheme Boxes of freshly packed vegetables grown with love and care to the highest organic standards in the food gardens of Cape Town’s townships. 25 years ago Abalimi Bezekhaya planted a seed of hope. That seed grew into abundance, the abundance overflowed into a harvest of plenty, the overflow became ‘Harvest of Hope’, where the goodness can reach the homes of many more. Abalimi is based primarily in township communities like Nyanga and Khayalitsha, where they encourage self sustainability and teach them to grow their own vegetables to feed their families. Organic vegetables are now grown in hundreds of gardens in the townships to sustain the communities. Abalimi works at any one time with over 50 community and institutional gardens and hundreds of home gardens. There is more than enough to feed the families and a growing excess which is sold locally or given away. Growers have little access to outside markets to sell their high quality produce. Harvest of Hope has provided a new market for excess produce. By collecting from all the various gardens involved, making up extraordinary vegetable boxes and taking them to schools where parents collect them for their homes. Who are the growers? The local township groups are each made up of 3 to 8 farmers. Most of the growers are women, anxious to feed their families. Typically they farm plots the size of the average classroom, with each group working between four and twenty plots. These growers are able to provide for their families and hope to sell the rest of their crop. HoH provides firm orders at predetermined prices. The growers are excited and are setting aside prime parts of their land to grow exclusively for HoH. We started at the beginning of 2008, first establishing 120 boxes. We are now working up in stages as more seeds are planted. The more boxes needed the more square meters they can plant and the more they can earn.