Farm One. The Birth of the Revolution

Somewhere in the heart of Harare suburbia lay a dusty vegetable patch. This patch was home to Covo, Rape, sweet potatoes and various other crops that struggled against the pests, water shortages and the thriving population of moles. Little did this patch know that a year from then it would have yielded more than 15 tons of fresh, tasty and sustainable produce.

This humble patch would be named “Farm One” and become the heart of our mission to Revolutionise Urban Agriculture.

From that humble patch came greenhouse one. This greenhouse would produce a relatively small amount of lettuce, herbs and cucumbers for local markets. This was just the beginning for us and our ambition led us to build two more greenhouses that would be focused on the production of pesticide-free cucumbers. And oh boy, did they produce them well! On our first attempt, we were flooded with more cucumbers than we could sell!

After that, we built our fourth greenhouse, whose production was focused on the production of Cherry tomatoes, and experimenting with deep water culture and the growth of bulbing crops hydroponically.

Our desire to innovate led us to establish our research and development department. Since then, we’ve reduced our nutrient usage by 30%, increased both the quality and quantity of lettuce we produce and we are currently developing locally produced nutrient options in line with our drive to be source local as much as we can. At the same time, our efforts to change the shape of urban agriculture were recognised by UNICEF and HIVOS, who chose us to develop a prototype to empower urban youths to make better food choices. The best way to go about this in our eyes was to equip them with the knowledge and skills to grow hydroponically, to supply themselves and their families with fresh, nutritious and affordable produce. Our prototype has thus far trained 30 youths from Westminster International School and the University of Zimbabwe.

And that brings us to today, where we have partnered with Zimbabwe’s leading fertiliser company, ZFC to produce nutrients locally, and are training more and more individuals on how they can join the Urban Agriculture revolution.

What’s next? Stay tuned to find out! book a tour to learn more about us, or sign up for our training to join us in our efforts to make fresh produce more nutritious, flavorful affordable and sustainable