 Welcome everybody to the Private Property Farming Podcast. Thank you so much for supporting and joining the podcast. I hope you have subscribed to our YouTube channel where you get all the agri-content you need. We speak to farmers, entrepreneurs, business people, corporates and agribusinesses alike in the sector. So if you want to know anything about agriculture and farming, this is a place to be. Please like and subscribe and ask questions, comment and obviously send through your suggestions of what you would like to see right here on the podcast. Today we're joined by Ele Tungala, founder of Ignite Hub, and he's going to tell us about the creative spaces that he's been able to start within his community, also bring up gardens and empower conversations around food security, farming and I suppose also attracting youth in the sector. So yeah, let's hear about what he does. The impact that he has brought into his communities and let's just welcome him. Ele Tungala, how are you doing and thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Thank you Mbali for having me today. It's been a long time coming for us to have this conversation and the Farming Podcast is a very relevant space to learn about the agribusiness and just how we can grow in it and who are the key players within it. So I am the founder of Ignite Hub and this is a space which was inspired by the lack of infrastructure when it comes to communities, when it comes to townships. So there's very few spaces that allows for people to have conversations around the development of the spaces but at the same time we're faced with food insecurity within these communities and there's very little conversation and actually actions to ensure that we impact, we have a different conversation when it comes to the food security within these spaces. So Ignite Hub started as a garden where I was inspired also by the emergence of COVID-19. During COVID-19 I was invited to a garden tour in Kukuleeto and Kukuleeto is a township. So for me I was very shocked, a garden tour in Kukuleeto, what do you mean? So here I am part of this conversation and I'm like people have so many backyards and they are backyard gardens within their spaces and for me this was a shock and that was when I was ignited myself into the gardening space and Ignite Hub started where I started the garden because I had a background when it comes to creating spaces within community, events for performances, inviting youth into conversations and because there was lack of infrastructure and I started this garden at ECT this was an opportunity for me now to make the garden a multi-people space where I can bring in more youth into the garden because as I noticed working with other organizations within the community, the space, the agriculture especially every agriculture is taken up by old people and quite understandably. So using the garden we are able now to bring education to the, we are able to bring education to youth within the community also even the ECT students to take part within within agriculture and understand what it takes to a food on the plate. With the gardens that you were obviously exposed to what type of crops did you see people farming? So I saw a lot of spinach, spinach is a, so everybody loves spinach because it grows fast and for the first time I saw perennials in the community and for me I asked the story like how do they get to have perennials within their gardens and they said at some point a lot of people are inspired to grow perennials because they had to diversify what they were growing and they grew this perennials but people didn't even know how to cook the perennials how do you prepare the perennials so like the story like stories like that but you also find your onions you also find your your your kales you find your kales you find your beetroot a lot of beetroot people grow a lot of beetroot because of its resilience and there's quite a few and especially with school gardens school gardens usually have a very big variety especially the one which was introduced to which is called uh sinak or garden so they had a lot of trees within them so the idea for them was to create a food forest and they had a lot of fruit trees within their space a lot of herbs we have your thymes you have your amaranth you have your rosemary which I fell in love with myself where you don't mean so there's quite a diversity but when it comes to backyard gardens now you have your spinach uh your uh your spinach your onions your beetroot and anything that grows fast yeah yeah right and especially all year round crops yeah fantastic it's nice to see such a diverse range of crops and I agree spinach is like one of the most quickest crops to grow spinach and kale in that family group urban farming has shown to be quite a phenomenon right around around people these days and in your view what is an urban farm and how are small uh small gardens or small businesses profiting from it okay so for me I consider an urban farmer a person who uses who makes use of the space that they have I know that the question of land is a very big problem but sometimes we have spaces and the urban farming the urban farmer we consider a person who is in an urban setup who is able to use the space uh be using uh grow boxes be using pot plants uh so that I'm going to talk about this which is also a business aspect which I've mentioned into using my carpenter skills to create boxes for people to grow so for me where I've seen how people can profit from uh use from from using their small spaces so the power that I've been able to to to to to see is the use of uh collaboration with gardens within the community I work with an organization called kukulia to urban food forest initiative so they've started about 20 gardens within the community three community kitchen gardens so how how how how these organizations were able to to to how these gardens were able to profit they were able to pull together so we get spinach from one garden we get carols from this one we get uh uh beetroot from this one and then we're able to pull those together and use markets in places like cpoint where we're able to sell our produce as a collective so that that was working for a while but now teaching people to to to do gardens within the urban setup there was a problem when it came to follow up ensuring that people are able to grow again when it comes to the next season they're able to find their own seeds so the power of the power of profit out the power I've seen that allows people to profit is when they are able to bring together their resources and be able to use existing markets and just uh using seedlings as well because now there's a there's an opportunity more people are even with my garden people have like my garden takes quite a central place within my community in kukulia to where a lot of people have seen how we have transformed the place which was previously a camping site but now it is a beautiful space with our fruit and with fruits and vegetables in it so now people that has created created the demand people want compost people want to know how they can be able to to to learn to grow their own food so there's that opportunity of selling the produce there's an opportunity of bringing the the compost to the community so that people can be able to access it and uh create within their own spaces for me personally I've seen as I've mentioned I'm a carpenter and I started making a grow grow boxers where you can be able now to use those within your small balcony within your small yard to grow your own food uh in that controlled environment. Aletha what has inspired you to come up with all these innovative solutions of how to grow food like you said in your backyard and taking a dumping site as well growing food now you're speaking about boxes what inspired you to find various ways of growing food uh in the manner in which you are? Okay so here I am growing food far away from my own home uh in an ECT I have to walk to get there to water the space and it takes quite a lot and as I'm interacting with other networks within the space I see that there are boxes that have been sold and other people are growing in boxes and I'm like I can create I can create this because I have the skill to to work with wood so for me I was inspired by the the actual uh spaces where they've they've used uh different ways to grow food with very little spaces so for me that was inspiring how people use the little space they had but using boxes and I was like I can actually create these and bring them to the community and besides my my garden was not big enough for me to make the profit the kind of profit that I would love to make from that space and I saw that opportunity from from that side so I'll bring to bring you to this I don't know if you've heard of the growth grow the the food tower so it's an American product it's a it's a vertical growing system and people can grow a lot of vegetables within that's uh that's small tower and for me I was like this cost about 4,000 brands so this is not going to be accessible for the people within the community so I I converted so I learned from that one as a creative I was like okay let me make my own but now using wood because wood is accessible so using recycled wood I was able to create a growth tower which can take up to 120 seedlings within half a square meter and that uses less soil that uses less water and less maintenance for those who don't know how to take care of pests and your uh your weeds so that's one now aspect which I'm working on to ensure I can uh put it out on the market and allow for restaurants to go to have a cocktail bar to have a cocktail tower a person who likes their salads to have their own salads but within a small space with very little maintenance and at an affordable price as well and the material is also sustainable because one thing because my journey into farming was inspired by a grassroots movement to help the community to to be able to participate within the food system because we never know where our food comes from so sustainability has been a very big part of my journey and I had to find sustainable sustainable material and which would also allow me to make it affordable to be accessible to people but I did learn this one thing uh as uh entrepreneurs especially from the townships we are you inspired by uh we're usually inspired to make solutions which help within our communities but can also be accessible in communities where there's more buying power so now I'm diversifying my my growth tower to meet even the demands for for those who are able to afford these are your restaurants who as I've mentioned who need maybe a cocktail uh growth tower so specifically things that they use within their their their kitchen so that's that's the journey I'm on now transitioning uh not not too far from growing on the ground but actually using the growth tower as well as as another option happiness if you're just joining us right now we are speaking to the founder of ignite hub and we're speaking around the secrets of growing food with limited water and land and he's definitely proof of that because he's found so many initiatives and ways in which you can grow food with just limited food sorry with limited land and water and he's empowering the community uh in the same in the same breadth um I just want to find you know you've been speaking about urban agriculture you know farming in the urban areas farming in townships farming with in spaces where land is not in abundance you know so with with you having founded ignite hub and and having engaged with communities and you know shown the diversity in which people can grow their own food etc what have you found to be some of the issues um around urban agriculture especially around in the township and the communities that you serve just over and above limited water and land what other issues are prevalent uh in these areas and uh what type of solutions can we we start thinking of okay um I'll say one of the biggest challenges is getting a buy-in from the community and access access to a market um so even myself at some point I created as many towers as I could and there was no one to buy those towers because I was not out there at that moment so there's a lot of other people who grow a lot of wonderful veggies and they use natural methods so high-value crops which will be bought by anyone who who who has the buying power but now how do you access the market and it's quite understandable because uh the the challenge of accessing the market is influenced by it's currently the moment we have a lot of uh elderly who are within the space and the use of social media to actually start getting out what they're purchasing has been a challenge as well so access to market has been one of their biggest challenges and we've at some point we've tried planting trees on a on a sidewalk like fruit trees on a sidewalk so two days later we came back none of those trees were in that space so theft has been one of the biggest problems and you find sometimes you create yourself a shade net in your garden next thing that shade net has been stolen it is so it's on someone's burglar somewhere so people use the shade net sometimes to cover their burglar for their doors and uh you get those who steal it so crime has been one of that one of those challenges um and also the access to market but i also want to repeat this when it comes to water especially in the context of kukuletu you find that the houses uh how they are made so we've been on on many courses where we're trying to learn about water capture systems and the challenge now is the water that the the roofs in kukuletu are currently made out of asbestos and to be capturing the water and using it on your plants is a problem because asbestos is is there's a transition when it comes to government to remove asbestos in people's houses because of its toxicity so that challenge water is one of the biggest challenges and even when we're trying to catch that water we find that the roof uh how it's made is a is a challenge so uh as as a collective we've been devising ways to ensure that we can be able to keep water so through our collective power of being able to have conversations with organizations like vpu where some of our market gardens as a collective were helped to be able to have boreholes within their spaces so using the power of network we're able to overcome some of our challenges yeah this is amazing and uh i think you know what you're doing firstly is amazing but it's also just discouraging that you know it's the very same community that is taking certain assets that we're trying to build like our shade nets etc but um moving on to more positive stuff you know i mean you're a young person in the agri space urban agri space and you said you've been engaging with young people as well so what type of guidance can you provide to young people who want to venture in this space who are possibly listening to this podcast and are thinking i should be in touch with eleter because maybe i've got space in my home garden or i would like to work with you and maybe make a bigger impact so what type of advice would you give to young people who are just starting out in the industry you know one thing i'll tell you start just start because i find a lot of people who even use the seeds that they get from the produce they get from shops so i'll say for you to start if you can make your own compost with your kitchen waste start doing that because there's an opportunity in that compost being sold if you can collect enough of it and start using seeds as well seeds seeds are powerful things that it's powerful to watch seeds are growing from like grow your own plant from seeds to to your own plate that that is that is wonderful and if this motivates you as an individual who would like to start within the agri business it it brings a different vibe into your home space to even have plants within your space even if you start with your succulents within your within your own home that that brings a different vibe a different perception about your own home when you're coming back to your own home and having things which are growing within your space so there's that element of beautifying the space at the same time there's that element of there's the the agri business is so wide now i was i was watching that the podcast like thank you for the farming podcast because now ever since i started knowing about it i was like the more people have to to to know about like this type of work so start like go to the local garden gardener school uh volunteer for for a day like for me i am the type of farming takes off my shoes when i get in the garden and just enjoy the space because i've i've learned about what is called grounding so start and grow with the process because i believe now i'm still in the process of transitioning myself because i started as an activist within the food system because i i challenges with uh the the lack of uh of security when it comes to food whereas south africa is a producer of surplus uh and food we have a lot of food in south africa but it's a matter of access and uh so the conversation also around food if even if you're not even on the field just contributing towards the for the conversation around food because solutions already exist the solutions already exist and it's a matter of having those solutions being widespread to to many more people and for me i if you want to really be within the agri food system think about it our families at some point were were self-sustaining and they were able to to to help each other even if you did not have crops we did not have uh your own animals within your own home but people were able to help each other back in those days i'm i'm i'm in the agri food system to to see more people taking the the taking their dignity back by ensuring that there's food within the within their own plates tracyletia says uh the the absence of food in the plate is not just there it's not just the absence of food within the plate but it is the absence of care it is the absence of of of love it is the absence of dignity of of human dignity so participate within the food system because at some point we we see that the challenge is we have food within the shops but if you do not have money to get to that food you won't get it so do it so that you can inspire the children especially the children does use the space that you have there's there's never small space for me as a as also as a creator as a as a as a creative i've been able to use gutter systems with it so at home we have an RTP house but i was able to transform the small space that i have at home and put gutter use gutters within the space put some boxes within the space use old pellets if you must as an opportunity within that looking at the broader scale of the agri food system there's there's the processing element of it as well which i haven't been exploring currently at this moment so if if if you do not even want to so there's so many entries of point within this and you can start with literally nothing by using the seeds which we have attained from from the shop so there's many beautiful stories out there start using podcasts like this and we i because i started agriculture through affiliation with an organization called google to urban food forest initiative i a course that you can go and look it up and and see what are the systems that they're using to grow there to grow food within the community yeah well thank you so much a little for your time today we thoroughly enjoyed your conversation and i like the advice that you're giving to young people you know the the the different solutions like you're saying use old pellets gutters you're seeing systems that are being done abroad but you know when you look at the price comparison down here it costs four thousand maybe young person can't even afford four thousand but they have that creativity they have that mindset they're good with their hands and how can you create or replicate a system like that using something that's more accessible down home to grow your own food and i think it's what you're saying just start use the resources that you have and just no excuses right it's it's it's really about starting connecting collaborating and also educating yourself you know we have data every day people have access to data or access to wi-fi instead of googling other things or watching other videos if you're passionate about the industry there's platforms like the podcast you know to learn and obviously meet individuals like yourself and connect and so yeah i mean these are very simple things that you are sharing and so to anybody watching just start so thank you so much for your time ellet and all the best with ignite tab thank you for having me on the podcast and to everyone please subscribe this is a very wonderful platform and share the content that is being shared here because we need pieces of africa absolutely and just as the african continent as well here yeah absolutely that was ellet hunkana founder of ignite tab and he's based in the western cape um he does a lot of work around urban agriculture urban farming within the google letter area and various townships and uh he was just sharing us uh his experience and his knowledge about how he's been able to grow food with limited water and land and how he's also empowering the community exposing the communities alike to start growing their own food so that they can feed themselves and i will suppose neighboring communities right and it all speaks to food security if you enjoyed this conversation please like share with as many people as possible and support the individual uh ellet to and his organization ignite hub if you are in the western cape or close to where he's operating um please support him and i think you know collaboration is key and that's the way we can grow our organization and empower a lot more people so thank you so much for watching today's podcast and i will see you next time take care recording stopped