Greener roofs,

happier community, more CSI happier community, more CSI happier community, more CSI

This remarkable project creates a productive green space atop the roof of popular shopping mall, creating value for the retail trade, stimulating the supply chain, uplifting the community and also supporting the ‘cool roof’ concept, a significant side-effect of any such undertakings.

Redefine Properties, the landlord of legacy stock property, Kenilworth Centre, has donated the use of the roof to the Mr Price Foundation’s HandPicked programme, with income generated by the farm used to fund the project. Other key partners include Fresh Life Produce and SA Urban Food & Farming Trust/Oranjezicht City Farm.

How landlords can change the way retail properties are managed and developed

“Our aim is to create a meaningful and sustainable long-term solution to tackle youth unemployment and in turn food security in our immediate community and catchment area. We believe this project will set an example for how landlords can change the way retail properties are managed and developed so that lives, communities and the environment are impacted positively,” says Anelisa Keke, Chief Sustainability Officer at Redefine.

Mall restaurants will be able to purchase fresh vegetables directly from the farm, saving the considerable expense of transport fees. A kiosk or pop-store (as available) in the mall will be allocated to sell produce to customers in order to generate additional income for the farm.

SA-developed African Grower system used

The HandPicked CityFarm uses a South African-developed system called the African Grower. This robust, easy-touse, modular vertical garden consists of multiple growing pods stacked on top of one another.

These towers are suspended, making it pest resilient, and coconut coir is used as a water-efficient growing medium. The system promotes increased production with each African Grower tower housing between 16 and 24 plants, occupying the same footprint as that of a person standing. This gives the project the advantage of increased production in a small space using vertical growing practices.

Louis-Gillis Janse van Rensburg of Fresh Life Produce says that mall owners have realised they must demonstrate how the malls can benefit the surrounding low income communities in more ways than just being a shopping centre.

“The CityFarm was built from the outset to focus on becoming a safe agricultural incubator for the Langa community’s unemployed youth that has easy access to the market and help it to become financially sustainable quicker.”

The farm is also used as a training ground for members of the Langa community.

How it’s done

“Using the African Grower technology, uses coconut coir as a growing medium so it not only gives us a much wider variety of vegetables we can now produce but also uses 10 times less water than in soil growing because of the amazing capability of the coconut coir to absorb water,” says Janse van Rensburg.

“We also use a controlled release fertiliser that is mixed into our growing pots on day one that lasts for six months, making sure all the plant food needed is there and one just needs to water on a regular basis.

“This helps keep the irrigation unclogged with any fertilizer. The controlled release fertiliser works like a gearbox: It consists of granules that are coated with a special polymer that knows when to start the release process.

“We use normal tap water at this stage but we are looking at ways to use borehole water in the future after we have made sure it is safe and does not contain too much salt content”.