In the eastern region of South Africa, communities face ongoing hardships - with erratic electricity, little water access due to an 8-year drought in the region and extremely poor infrastructure. Households on average have 5 family members, however with the highest rate of HIV/Aids in the country, many have the additional pressure of supporting extended family and other child-headed households in the community.

Despite these hardships, communities of small farmers are coming together with the help of a local NGO, Biowatch, to create productive vegetable gardens to improve food security at the household level. With GMOs being heavily pushed in the region, Biowatch works with the farmers to build on their family 'seed banks', and ensure that their traditional and indigenous seeds are revived, so that control of their seed is increasingly secure and in their own hands.

Biowatch works closely with 20 community projects across the region bringing ongoing mentoring and training on ecological agricultural practices particularly important given the drought conditions. By drawing on their livestock manure, farmers create layers of dry leaves and grass, green branches, cattle manure, wet cow dung, ash and water. Left for two weeks, this compost sack will be ready to use on the household vegetable gardens.

Other ecological practices adopted by the communities include the use of natural wormeries which as well as creating rich compost, also provide an effective natural liquid foliar-feed fertiliser .And 'liquid manure' - here a farmer places a sack of carefully measured manures (depending on which animal) in a bucket of water to be left to steep and stew for a week.

By coming together and creating these 15m x15m gardens per household, these small farmers are able to produce enough food to feed their families and also have a surplus. Biowatch is now assisting them to access and sell this surplus to appropriate markets such as local schools and clinics - with the aim of reaching broader markets in coming years.