Masibambisane Community Integrated Agriculture on Mountain View Farm

Project Type

Project Summary

The MCCDO has begun a Masibambisane initiative to address local food security, promote regenerative agriculture and empower vulnerable communities who haven't benefitted from land reform nor have access to communal land. The farm under MCCDO custodianship where the initiative is based is called Mountain View and is 324ha in size. 150ha of agricultural land is primarily allocated for community cultivation in the first phase and this will be expanded as future productivity requires. Our opportunity is that Mountain View boarders Shayamoya - a RDP housing settlement (4700+ RDP houses) on the outskirts of Kokstad and is also adjacent to 2 other informal 'townships' where the poverty and unemployment rates are chronic and rising. Residents in these settlements are often discouraged work seekers who are stuck in the unemployment trap and their families endure a low standard of living and are food insecure. This is not unlike many parts of South Africa, and MCCDO is pioneering various innovative solutions on the farm which will address these common national challenges.

Project Description

The MCCDO approach to addressing community development and food security for the Kokstad region does not encompass a conventional agriculture sector plan, but rather proposes a comprehensive, holistic and integrated approach to the development of unproductive arable landcombined with relevant education and opening access to diverse farming and other sectoral opportunities. Courses and activities in regenerative Agriculture, OCM (open community manufacturing), environmental stewardship, sustainable design, technology and development taught at the MCCDO centre are practically implemented on Mountain View Farm. Combined these initiatives help create sustainable livelihoods for communities without land and in time we will establish a new agricultural value chain system that can support labour-absorbing and capacity building activities, generate many forms of empowerment through SMMEs/Co-Ops and provide equitable access to safe nutritious food - all of which are fundamental prerequisites for equitable prosperity in the local economy.

As part of our approach to inculcate an appreciation of Agricultural-biodiversity and promote the local culinary and traditional heritage of flora and fauna. Agricultural productivity on Mountain View is aiming to be both vertically and horizontally integrated like in nature and designed along Permaculture, Keyline, Agro-Ecology (AE) and bio-dynamic principles et al (See Appendix B for definitions). Lessons are learned and shared and students visiting the farm and MCCDO Centre are encouraged to think and discern truth for themselves and are reminded that only “Applied Knowledge is Power”, that they must research and participate in implementing solutions to our common challenges by thinking globally while living and eating locally.

As part of the Mountain View farm operation, the MCCDO also helps and teaches individuals and communities how to setup permanent agricultural systems as valid, consciously designed, regenerative and complete energy systems. We share the principles of Permaculture, biodynamic farming and Keyline design et al. to show how the needs of the agricultural system for energy, are provided by that system and how to embody a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system. Everything that can be together is put together, works together, and helps each other. Every unit has many uses: every use is achieved in many ways. MCCDO helps teach people build fail-safe food systems.

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