Southern Africa food lab design thinking workshop

In early October, a group of actors involved in the local food system gathered at Oribi Village in Gardens, Cape Town for a design-thinking workshop focused on strengthening the contribution of smallholder farmers to a more sustainable and healthy food system in the Western Cape. Farmers, small-scale fishers, community gardeners, packhouse representatives, established businesses, and clients including restaurateurs, chefs, cooking networks, were brought together with the aim of identifying and addressing the logistical challenges faced by the smallholder farming community.

Facilitated by Dr Scott Drimie, Director of the Southern Africa Food Lab, and co-hosted by Abalobi and Oribi Village, the workshop fostered networking and strategic thought in order to stimulate mutual learning and new connections. The idea was to bring together a collective of extraordinary people to network, engage and learn in order to identify practical steps to build practice around smallholder farming in the Western Cape.

The hope is that such workshops will, in time, result in improved technical and logistical support to smallholder farmers in the province.

View the full workshop report here.