Today in the Sustainable Development class I'm taking, we worked on an organic farm near Stellenbosch. For us students, "work" was picking beans for a half hour in a very hot morning sun.
The farmland is owned by the Stellenbosch Municipality, and is worked by Eric. It has a very interesting history. Prior to the 1994 election, it was one among many pieces of municipal land deeded by the white Apartheid municipality to white farmers as a way to prevent post-election land reform. In this case, Eric's organic farm was given to the Spier Estate, if I have the story correct. Spier gave the land back to the municipality after the election, because they knew the giveaway was "not on" as they say here. Spier and the Sustainability Institute approached the municipality and proposed that the land be used for small-scale organic farming, hoping that it would (a) become a successful farm and (b) become a model to be replicated throughout South Africa for similar pieces of land.
It took several years, but (a) has been accomplished. Eric is successfully producing on the land after lots of hard work to get the soil back into shape. Sadly, (b) has not happened as hoped.
The organic farm is near the Soverby estate, so I took some photos there as well. You can tell it is close to harvest by the heavy grapes on the vines everywhere! We're starting to see tractors pulling loads of freshly-picked grapes on the shoulders of the roads. And, we can smell the ripeness of the winemaking process as you drive by some of the estates.
--Matt
