"Whether it was a dinner out with friends, Sunday family lunch or a solitary midnight snack, the food that made up your last meal probably travelled from a variety of places to end up on your plate. The question is, how much do you know about its journey to get there? We look into Cape Town’s complex food systems to learn more about the route our food takes, from farm to fork. We start our journey in green fields that stretch almost as far as the eye can see, hemmed on two sides by purple mountains in the distance. While it might look rural, these fields are just a few kilometres from the bustling streets of the city centre. Carl Görgen’s family has been farming in Philippi for at least three generations. “I believe this is a very special place, not only because it is my family heritage but because its location between two sets of mountains means that it sits atop an aquifer, an underground lake, which is important when growing vegetables that require a lot of water. The fact that such a large volume of vegetables can be grown so close to the city makes Philippi essential to Cape Town.” The Görgen family’s 70 hectares support lettuce, different kinds of cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, broccoli and, most recently, potatoes. Once harvested, the produce mostly travels directly to major supermarket chains, where it joins other fresh produce in an intricate cold chain that stretches across the country. A smaller portion travels to the Cape Town Market in Epping. 60 000 tons a month Cape Town Market, photo by Lisa BurnellThe Cape Town Market can trace its history back to the original market that supplied the ships of the VOC with fresh produce during Cape Town’s infancy. Today it is the only privately owned market in the country, run on a commission system, with agents selling produce on behalf of farmers at prices set by the market itself. Each month a mammoth 60 000 tons of fresh produce passes through its doors. When I visit the cavernous main trading floor at 07h00 on a stormy winter’s morning, much of the stock has already been sold. What remains is being loaded onto forklifts on pallets heaped high with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cabbages and other vegetables and fruit, before being driven at dizzying speed around various agents’ allotments. Herman Bonthuys, a barrel-chested man with a big laugh, has been an agent here for over 30 years. This morning he has five different tomato cultivars on offer, from farms as close as Vredenburg and as distant as Mpumalanga, and various other vegetables and fruit. “I sell to all types of people, from major supermarkets to smaller retailers, informal vendors and even individuals. Some of this stuff also ends up at the people’s market outside.” Vegetables on show at the Cape Town Market, photo by Lisa BurnellThe people’s market, on the perimeter of the main market, allows individuals to buy produce without having to apply for a buyers’ card. Here, according to long-time vendor Ebrahim Singh, people are as likely to buy ten individual tomatoes as ten boxes containing 50 tomatoes each, with much of the produce sold trickling down into townships, as part of the extensive informal trade plied by vendors around Cape Town. If you’ve ever stopped on the street to buy a tomato or two, there’s a good chance it came from here. What else is on the menu? As diverse as our diets are, so are the routes that food takes into our city. Exotic or out-of-season fruit and vegetables often come from half a planet away, imported at high prices for supermarkets in wealthy areas. As Jane Battersby, a UCT food academic who has been studying food systems in Cape Town for a number of years, points out: “In the case of higher priced chickens sold in most supermarkets, the chickens are farmed locally by producers like Rainbow Chicken. But, in the case of the budget cuts of chicken or those sold at restaurants serving cheap food, it’s more likely that the chicken comes from abroad, often from Brazil.” Even meat that is largely farmed in South Africa, like beef and mutton, reaches the inhabitants of Cape Town in numerous ways. Most mutton and lamb joins the formal retail supply chain, travelling from farm to abattoir to processing plant to supermarket. Because the cost of such meat is often prohibitively high for township dwellers, there is also an informal route by which meat enters the city. Photographer Damien Schumann became interested in mapping this route after he started questioning the quantity of meat being slaughtered, prepared and sold on the streets in Cape Town’s townships. “The stark difference between purchasing a vacuum-packed braai pack in Woolworths and the meat on the streets being smoked by exhaust fumes evoked culture shock in me. So I decided to investigate the story of meat to expose the health and social challenges that it is a product of and contributor to.” Informal butchery near Khayelitsha, photo by Damien Schumann In his project Meat Informally, he documents the journey of sheep from an auction outside Paarl to the Makhaza taxi rank near khayelitsha. According to his documentary outline, “Sheep are purchased for approximately R900 each, and resold later for approximately R1 500. From [the auction] they are taken to a holding farm on the outskirts of the townships … Every morning from as early as 06h30 informal butchers arrive at the farm to purchase livestock to slaughter, cook and sell that day. Interestingly, a large amount of people coming to purchase the meat were women, pointing towards the amount of households that are being financially supported by women in cities at present … The sheep are taken to the butchers’ home or braai ‘restaurant’ where they are slaughtered in their yards or on the side of the street. Once the carcasses are ready they are placed back in the vehicle and taken to the braai areas.” Eating for change While most systems that bring food into the city focus on maximising efficiency and profit, newly minted restaurateur Shannon Smuts has a food system with a different aim in mind: healthy food, sustainability and social good. Shannon Smuts at Pure Good, photo by Lisa BurnellAfter taking a two-month sabbatical from her job when she was chosen as a MasterChef SA contestant last year, and then being eliminated first, Shannon found herself with a passion for healthy, local, organic food and some time on her hands. “I knew I’d have a massive PR opportunity that I could use for something good when the show aired, so I met the NGO Baphumelele’s Fountain of Hope organiser, and we realised that we could build something special and symbiotic as a producer and client. This eventually led to me opening my restaurant, Pure Good, which focuses on healthy food and uses vegetables grown at the Fountain of Hope farm. I want to focus on a no-waste system so that eventually the farm supplies at least 90% of my vegetables, with all the offcuts from my kitchen being returned to the farm as compost. So far it’s going really well, our biggest problem at present being the lack of a vehicle.” Fountain of Hope project manager Katie Sears hopes the project can produce enough vegetables to feed all the children and patients of Baphumelele, and also provide organic vegetables to partners like Pure Good. “At the same time, we will be training young people who stay at the Fountain of Hope, and children and young people from our Child Headed Homes projects, to grow their own food. Food security and ensuring at least a basic nutritious diet is so important for these children – making sure they eat properly and remain healthy, but also giving them the security of a reliable food source, so that they can focus on their education or finding a job.” While theirs is still a fledgling creation, and minute compared to the other food systems in operation in our city, it is a good example of a mutually beneficial system, in which the best interest of both the producers and consumers is served. Discover more Find out more about the Cape Town Market Visit Pure Good at 21 St Johns Street, Cape Town Discover more about Damien’s Meat Informally documentary: dspgallery/meatinformally Let Cape Town Partnership CEO Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana introduce you to Molo Find out how urban agriculture creates jobs and changes cities Join the conversation with Molo’s Facebook page: Facebook/molocapetown "
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 06:48:26 +0000
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