Growing Healthy Farms trains emerging farmers, feeds orphans

Based on a tiny urban farm on the outskirts of Johannesburg, the organisation is run by Jacques Damhuis, who has been growing vegetables since he was a three-year-old toddler “helping” his gran in her garden. Growing Healthy Farms was founded by Damhuis with two key aims: to teach ecological farming skills to unemployed people, thereby contributing to job creation, and to feed orphans with healthy fresh produce from the farm.

By supporting Growing Healthy Farms, people can contribute to skills development and job creation (and thus socioeconomic development), as well as food security for South Africa’s vulnerable children.

Ways to get involved

Damhuis explains that there are numerous ways people can get involved, from coming on board as a sponsor or corporate funding partner to making a donation, booking a farm tour, buying fresh veggies (online or at the farm itself), purchasing gardening goods or seedlings from Growing Healthy Foods, or attending a full-day workshop on one of the eight “growing” topics available.

When he’s not focused on ensuring Growing Healthy Farms reaches its goal of being totally self-sustaining, Damhuis runs a company called Positive Cycle, which offers a range of natural vegetable gardening solutions for individuals and organisations alike. He’s currently busy with a project for the Riversands Incubation Hub offering training for the unemployed in edible landscaping and micro farming.

“I’m trying to teach people how to work with nature,” Damhuis explains, “So I do whatever I can think of to help them with that, from training emerging farmers to selling all the ingredients people need to grow their own healthy foods at home.”

Setting up food gardens

Many of his Positive Cycle projects involve setting up food gardens at schools, and he then tries to find people from the local communities to help look after the finished gardens. These are the emerging farmers who are invited to undergo training on the Growing Healthy Farms urban farm in Beaulieu Country Estate, Midrand.

“Our aim is to sell 50% of the vegetables that the farm produces to help cover its running costs, and to donate the other 50% to feed 1014 children in orphanages with 150g of nutritious vegetables every day,” Damhuis says.

Family-friendly outing

Jacques Damhuis

For Joburgers looking for an unusual and family-friendly holiday outing, Damhuis offers regular farm tours of the property to showcase the natural farming methodology at work. This includes the reason the farm is planted in a giant spiral of berms and swales to understanding its flock of bug-eating pest control geese, its worm farms, its bokashi bins and its natural water management mechanisms.

“I’d love for more people to come and visit us and see what we do, and to think about growing their own healthy foods,” Damhuis says. “For companies, we’re also an attractive corporate social investment option as we can assist with meeting the scorecard requirements for enterprise development. We’re currently in the process of registering as a public benefit organisation, which will offer organisations the added benefit of claiming a tax break for supporting us.”

For more information, go to www.growinghealthyfarms.org.za.