Bringing fresh, seasonal flavour to your table

Writer: Hedda Mittner

Soil-focused, bug-friendly and sustainable farming is the hallmark of Cape Food Farm, where organic vegetables, fruit and flowers are grown on the 200 ha Du Bois farm near Papiesvlei, between Stanford and Elim. This is where Steve and Karien Buys have been living and farming for the past 20 odd years, cherishing the rural Overberg landscape, clean air and fresh spring water.

According to Steve, he searched a long time for this pocket of virgin land, which was perfectly suited to their ideal of growing organic, nutrient-dense vegetables in a sustainable way. The focus is on the soil, and not the plants, explains Steve, because good soil produces healthy plants. Sustaining and feeding the soil as well as the organisms that live in it is at the root of more nutrition and flavour.

“So many chronic illnesses that have developed over the past 60 years can be linked to industrial-agricultural supply systems,” says Steve, adding that their mission is to grow food with healing properties – food as medicine – and to protect the planet at the same time. “Our veggies are fed natural organic food and clear mountain spring water in a pollution-free environment. Hulle smaak so lekker want hulle eet so lekker!”

But what is it that makes Cape Food Farm’s produce more nutritional – medicinal, even? This is clearly Steve’s favourite subject, as he explains that soil is alive and that certain methods of farming, including the use of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and inorganic fertilisers kill off part of the natural symbioses that exist within the plant biology.

Click below to read more. (The full article can be found on page 10)