Iming (and Jaco) from Meuse Farm

Tell us a little about yourself!

I grew up in Northern California, moved to the US East Coast for university, came to Cape Town to study abroad and basically never left (went back to the US to finish university and came right back after).  I'm now living in Hout Bay, Cape Town,

How did you start doing what you are doing now? 

After working in infectious diseases public health for 7 years, I decided I actually wanted to somehow integrate our propensity to value human health/health economics over environmental health with work that was socially, ecologically, and economically meaningful while getting me outdoors.  I spent a year looking into the environmental conservation world, then got involved with turning an NGO into a social enterprise; all while slowly turning a lifelong veg gardening hobby into a slightly more methodical/data/research driven veg growing practice. 

One day, mid-step, I realised that small-scale farming answered all my vocation desires.  I had the luxury of taking time off to learn how to farm (rather than garden) and reached out to a few farms in the US to first volunteer for a few months (2015) and then apprentice for a full season (2016).

What are you most proud of in this process? 

It's not something I necessarily feel most proud about but something I'm very grateful for is finding the vocation that suits so many of my personality quirks and interests.  I always felt my public health work was meaningful but never loved it.  With farming, so many of my childhood interests, intellectual interests, and general ways of being all come together and just make sense.  

What is the most helpful piece of advice you received when you were just starting out? 

The most helpful advice (though I didn't have the time to follow it) was from my farm manager regarding choosing apprenticeships/farms to work on- that at the end of the season, I would have 1-2 key questions I wanted to learn about and to find the farm that would shed the most light on those questions.  And at the end of the following, the same would hold true.  Eventually though, you just have to start your own farm and figure things out. 

The most helpful advice from a book was a line in JM Fortier's book that said not to worry about figuring out your crop rotation plan in the beginning as most likely, a few seasons in, your crop list will have changed dramatically as you learn more about your market and farm.  Both of these tips speak to the constant learning and imperfections of farming as well as the value of just getting going.

What advice would you like to give to others who are younger/earlier on their journey? 

I find practical learning the easiest way to pick up farming tips.  If you have the privilege of taking unpaid or low paid work to learn on someone else's farm, do it.  So much of farming is having a basic understanding of the flow of a season and systems that work in it, your own sense of what interests you/what your values are in growing, and developing the eyes to see what's going on and ask questions.  From there, your farm will evolve based on your setting and your character.  

Where do you see growing going in South Africa? 

Unfortunately, in SA, I see growing/food trends following the US rather than, perhaps, some European countries more focused on flavour and provenance.  We may not be the most efficient farm but we're not terribly inefficient either. 

Growing food profitably in an ecologically sensitive way with decent salaries means selling at a price that most of SA cannot afford or will not choose to buy.  I think we are a long way off from the majority of South Africans to earn enough to pay for quality food (amongst other basic goods).  I do see a growing number of small scale commercial growers but many of these depend on higher income consumers or the restaurant market.  Those markets are both limited in SA and some of the growers come and go.