Agrihub Initiative

Overview

A community-based model for systemic urban resilience

The Agrihub Initiative is a city-scale programme in Cape Town that demonstrates how locally governed food systems can strengthen urban resilience and equity. Established in 2022, it now supports more than 1 500 small-scale farmers cultivating over 230 community food gardens across four marginalised communities facing intersecting challenges of poverty, food insecurity, and climate risk.

Each farmer-run Agrihub integrates production, training, storage, and market access with social infrastructure that builds trust, agency, and leadership. The model reduces dependency on external inputs while enabling collective governance of food systems. Data from the Langa Agrihub show that participating farmers have experienced reduced input costs, higher harvest values, and increases in household income, alongside improved yields and market access.

Beyond the economics, Agrihubs deliver nature-based and social co-benefits. Food gardens mitigate urban heat, absorb stormwater, recycle waste through composting, and restore biodiversity with over 2 200 indigenous and medicinal plants reintroduced in one township alone. Solar-powered cold rooms and water-efficient irrigation strengthen energy and resource resilience, while collective networks enhance civic participation and crisis response capacity.

The Initiative provides a replicable model for integrating food systems, social infrastructure, and climate adaptation into urban policy. By aligning community-led action with municipal resilience and climate strategies, it demonstrates that bottom-up approaches can complement formal governance systems, generating inclusive, low-carbon, and adaptive cities in practice.

Agrihub outcomes at a glance:

Through the Agrihub, on average:

  • Input costs (seeds, seedlings, compost, etc.) are 58% to 67% lower
  • Financial return on inputs is approximately 10x (for every 1 rand of cash invested the farmer gets a return of 10 rand back in cash)
  • Harvest value increased by 39%
  • Income increased by 217%
  • Crops grown and eaten or sold by farmers bring 23.7% increased value per month to the household from cash income and savings on food purchases
  • Other outcomes increasing farmer household resilience to shocks and stresses have been identified for mental and physical health, safety, social wellbeing, civic engagement, urban green spaces, biodiversity, and environmental quality.

In addition to the SA Urban Food & Farming Trust establishing further Agrihubs, the Agrihub Initiative will produce an open-source implementation and operations guide in 2025, and work to scale Agrihubs by supporting other organisations to establish one in their own communities in cities beyond Cape Town in South Africa, Africa and elsewhere. This will build a multi-city international network of community-based informal urban farmer collectives.

* DEFINITIONS

Agrihubs support primarily the "farming" or production aspects of being a farmer, and can have some overlap with a FoodHub. Core components of an agrihub are the following:

> Input-side services, e.g. nursery, extension support, tool hire, farming inputs, etc.
> Value addition for farmers, e.g. sorting facilities, pack houses and processing infrastructure.
> Knowledge generation/innovation function to share good technical practice but also to collect and disseminate local knowledge and practice
> A coordination/market agent function of availability and order fulfilment to assist with market access

An agrihub and its functions work best when controlled and managed by the farmers themselves. A strong and locally appropriate governance system to ensure the smooth operation of the hub is an important feature.

Innovative products and services can be explored and added in time as appropriate, including, e.g., improving access to financial services to farmers such as credit facilities, micro-insurance, loans, credit ratings systems, and savings products or stokvels; providing training and skills development; coordinating the introduction of PGS/certification standards; identification, testing, introduction, supply and support of new methods, technologies and other innovations appropriate to local farmers.

-----------------------

Foodhubs support primarily the "marketing" or sales and distribution aspects of being a farmer  and can have some overlap with an AgriHub. Core components of a FoodHub are the following:

> Carry out or coordinate aggregation, distribution, and marketing of primarily locally produced foods from multiple producers to multiple markets.
> Work with producers as business partners instead of suppliers.
> Work closely with producers to ensure they can meet buyer requirements by either providing technical assistance or finding partners that can provide this technical assistance.
> Use product differentiation strategies to ensure that producers get a good price for their products, e.g., identity preservation (knowing who produced it and where it comes from), group branding, specialty product attributes (such as heirloom or unusual varieties), and sustainable production practices (such as certification).

A FoodHub and its functions work best when controlled and managed by the farmers themselves. A strong and locally appropriate governance system to ensure the smooth operation of the hub is an important feature. 


SOURCE: SA Food Labs Workshop Report, Workshop Report, "Designing a smallholder farmer-focused agri-hub" (2017)