Matt Purkis from SAOSO, Project Biome, and PGS-SA

Tell us a little about yourself!

I’m a born-and-raised Joburger who did my schooling at Pretoria Boys High and studied design at Greenside Design Center. The Highveld was home for most of my life, but I recently migrated to the Western Cape—closer to the ocean, the mountains, and a bit more sanity.

For the last decade, I’ve been bouncing around the country, project-hopping through provinces like a regenerative nomad—learning, unlearning, building, and getting humbled over and over again. I’ve always known I wanted to design for impact. Growing up in post-apartheid South Africa (I’m a ‘87 baby), the dream of social equality was part of my DNA. I was that kid who believed we could break the mold and reimagine what “normal” looked like.

When I discovered Permaculture, it was like finding the missing instruction manual for humanity. It showed me how design could be used not just for pretty things—but for powerful, practical, ecological change. It made everything click.

How did you start doing what you are doing now? 

It started with R5000, a car, a tent and a dream. After studying Permaculture and Natural Building at Bergendal in the Klein Karoo, I camped out and volunteered for a year—fully immersed in the harsh beauty of the Karoo, learning to design with nature, not against it.

From there, I founded Eco Synergy Designs in 2012 and teamed up with another startup called Kanye Kanye. Together, we ran a 3-hectare organic farm in Honeydew, grew for and services the domestic market, launched an NGO—Afrivival—to support emerging farmers and homesteaders transitioning to sustainability.

Back then, the sector was still crawling. There were no roadmaps, just grit and hope. But in 2015, we connected with the South African Organic Sector Organisation (SAOSO), and that changed the game. Working under significant mentors such as Alan Rosenburg, Prof Raymond Aurebach, Konrad Hauptflash, Dr Naude Nalan to mention a few. By 2017, I got a bursary for the IFOAM Organic Leadership Course while I was working at University of Johannesburg, graduated in 2018, and was honoured to be nominated as a global IFOAM Ambassador in 2019. That’s when the story grew from local passion to global possibility.

What are you most proud of in this process? 

That I didn’t quit. Even when it was rough—financially, emotionally, existentially—I stayed true to the mission. Being an entrepreneur in a niche, underfunded sector wasn’t easy, but the vision always burned brighter than the obstacles.

Now, I spend my days coordinating brilliant teams, building resilient organizational systems, developing programs, managing partnerships, writing proposals, raising funds, and pushing the advocacy needle for agroecology and organic agriculture. My work straddles the SAOSO Foundation and Project Biome, and the collaboration between these two is proving to be a catalytic partnership for the Southern African region.

I’ve hung up my practitioner/service provider boots for the meantime until the sector is fully formed! These days I’m nurturing the dream of returning to organic farming in my 40s—on my own land, doing it for me, and my family. 

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

Permaculture ethics—those three simple principles changed everything:

• Care for the Earth

• Care for People

• Fair Share

They helped me reframe my entire worldview. We’re not separate from nature—we are nature. When you truly observe with an ecological lens, you see the systems at play. The advice that really stuck? “Integrate rather than segregate.” It taught me that we don’t scale by going it alone. We scale through collaboration, just like in any healthy ecosystem.

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

Don’t wait for someone to give you permission or hand you a map. Jump in. Say yes. Camp out. Volunteer. Start something. Fail spectacularly. Then get back up, wiser and more resilient.

The “perfect time” is a myth. The real growth happens when things don’t go according to plan. Trust the process, and remember: you are the soil, the seed, and the rain. Cultivate your own path.

Where do you see growing going in South Africa? 

It’s already happening! Every province has got its hands in the soil —urban farms, community gardens, regenerative agri-hubs. People are reclaiming their right to food, and it’s beautiful.

What’s exciting is that it’s not just about food anymore. It’s about sovereignty, about healing trauma, about rebuilding community. The movement is spreading fast—and I believe we’ll see real, systemic change in Mzansi within our lifetimes. The seeds are in the ground and growing.