The contribution of urban agriculture to food security in Emfuleni Local Municipality, Gauteng Province

Abstract

This study evaluated the contribution of urban agriculture (community gardens) to food security in Emfuleni Local Municipality in Gauteng province. The objectives were to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of farmers in urban community gardens; followed by determining contribution of urban community gardens to food security with specific reference to food availability, food accessibility, food utilisation and food stability; evaluating the factors that influence food utilisation of the farmers in urban community gardens and lastly conducting SWOT analysis of urban community gardens. The sample size of 254 farmers was randomly selected from 418 farmers located in 30 urban community gardens in Emfuleni Local Municipality. Furthermore, the study adopted purposive sampling for deliberately selecting one key informant from 30 urban community gardens that participated in the study. Quantitative research approach was employed using a survey design. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured survey questionnaire. Quantitative data was analysed by the use of Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23.0. The analysis included both descriptive (mean, standard deviation, standard error or mean and others) and inferential statistics and table frequency. Qualitative data was analysed using code and themes; and converted into frequencies. The study revealed that there were more females (71.3%) that participated in the community gardens than males (28.7%); only 23.2% of youth (<35 years) participated in community gardens. Majority (59.4%) of respondents spoke Sesotho while majority (53.5%) were not married (single). The main source of income of most (78.7%) respondents was farming activities precisely urban community gardens. The study found that community gardens contribute to food availability with regards to providing freshly produce vegetables, high consumption of vegetables and ensured that families of the beneficiaries ate sufficient vegetables produced from the gardens. Although there is uncertainty among some of the respondents that vegetables produced were not sufficient, only few respondents were concerned. Majority (96.7%) of community gardens produced vegetables for selling and consumption. It was therefore found that, in relation to food accessibility, an average of 47% did not experience anxiety, uncertainty and had consumed sufficient quantities of vegetables from the community gardens. With regards to food utilisation, majority of the respondents were consuming vegetables as a relish whereas others consumed vegetables for various reason such salad, health reasons and others as presented in the results section. On vegetable consumption pattern, it is concluded that gender, age group, level of education, participation period in community gardens, family size, number of family member working, number of working hours in the community garden per day, number of day working in the community garden per month and annual income from community garden influenced vegetables consumption pattern of the respondents (utilisation) in the study area. Coping strategies which were mostly adopted by the respondents to ensure food stability were: reducing vegetable intake to ensure that children ate enough, purchasing of vegetables on credit, reducing vegetables in the daily meals and borrowing money to buy vegetables. Some of the challenges that hindered vegetable production in urban community gardens were theft of garden tools and crops produce, lack of fencing and eating of vegetables by stray animals.