12 April

iZindaba Zokudla: Waste Exchanges and Retail Sales for Urban Agriculture

We will meet on the 12th of April on UJ Soweto Campus on Chris Hani Road. Please bring an ID document, a Passport or Birth Certificate to gain access to campus. We will meet in B3 at 9:00 for 9:30.

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Small urban farms, and small farms in general, have to be extremely inventive in ensuring the enterprise is solvent, and delivers a net benefit to the farmer. The only way to do this, being small, is to optimise the internal workings of the enterprise. Of course, when you gain access to more land, you could expand your enterprise, and derive benefit from being larger, but you may sacrifice some internal efficiency in doing so. Even if you expand, sooner or later you would have to become more efficient again, and it is best to find this sweet spot in your organisation sooner rather than later.

Seeing that the enterprises we are trying to develop base their production on biological means, a clear way of optimising your operations would be to gain access to biological materials as you trade at a low cost. This saves the farmer the costs of searching and moving these inputs to the farm, and also could make this input available at lower cost than if you would have to collect it yourself, or if you have to buy it.

In all cases, the enterprise must make these inputs available to its operations at lower costs than if it would be acquired on the open market. This is in fact a key consideration in building efficiencies in any enterprise. It is not a technical or ultimate efficiency we are chasing. You merely have to beat the competition. Of course it is better to strive for technical efficiency - as you bet everyone in such a case. But this is not always possible and any enterprise is located in some place o earth, and access to inputs are not always possible from anywhere.

The way to gain access to biological materials is to seek and barter for this through your customers. Establishing such an exchange is important for many reasons. Customers have biological materials in hand, and we all generate at least 100g of food waste a day (some say 1kg), we defecate, we urinate, and we can collect biological materials in our environment. There would be customers who have time on their hands, and they could collect and exchange. This could be the start of an ancillary enterprise: a compost and biological materials purveyor for urban farmers. We know that reclaimers can make a livelihood in collecting recyclable waste, and this indicates the value that is being created in these activities.

Collecting biological wastes in exchange for food will thus ensure continuity in next year’s harvest. These materials are valuable as farming inputs, and ensures you have materials for the next deep trench. A food for waste exchange is a really good deal, both for the farmer and the customer. The farmer gain access to inputs as described above, and this will be cheaper than buying it, provided the price for the exchange – the discount – is right.

It is also necessary to collect recyclable materials, and these can be exchanged for cash with a reclaimer who can sell it on. It would be important to engage in a partnership with such a person, to develop this stream of revenue n your enterprise.

You should also be mindful of high value waste, from biological high value waste like old cooking oil, to high value recyclables like old batteries. These create specialist opportunities for high value recycling. You should also note that these materials could be transformed further on site. Glass can be ground to make materials for water filtration, and aluminium cans can be melted. There are opportunities for light manufacturing to come out of such a partnership.

Another way to gain value, is to be effective in sales. Sales recover value, and do not create value directly. However, the value that is created could also be for the customer, and this value could translate into repeat sales. You must try and get each and every customer to come back. This can be done by giving them a good deal. Hence, we will also discuss how to sell staples from bulk buys, how to set up an event, and how to educate your customers on how this works. Hopefully we can discuss many more things in this regard!

You have to be extremely effective in sales. Sales are always influenced by price, and a knowledge of competitor’s prices are really important. You have to sell at a similar price as your competitors, but offer the same at higher value, in order to capture the market. You could sell a bunch, say, for a similar price, but then increase the weight of the bunch. There are many kinds of opportunities to maximise your sales. We will focus on as many as we can, but at least the following:

·       How to offer a similar product to your competitors, but at a lower price;

·       How to set up a bulk staple “special offer” sales system;

·       How to start with retail sales: Host an event at the farm;

·       How to Set up a waste for food exchange. We will concentrate on the following:

·       A food for food waste exchange;

·       A biological waste for food exchange;

·       A recyclables for food exchange; and a high-value biological waste exchange.

We will have guest lecturers! Please look forward to a lecture on Permaculture by Thabiso Kgasoane and Ivan Mokhitini from “Do as Nature Does Farm” NPC!

We will also listen to Dowelani Musimuni from UJ’s Department of Finance and Investment Management on financial literacy.

Its gonna be a grand day!