Meet the seeds for life cooperative

When Tanya Van Staden lost her job during the COVID-19 pandemic, she turned to her passion for subsistence farming and began growing vegetables to sell to friends and family.

Armed with the generational knowledge she acquired while growing up in Stellenbosch with her grandparents, who worked on a farm, Van Staden converted her swimming pool into a greenhouse and started by drying pepper seeds.

In 2022, she and her co-founder, Yumnah Wickstrom, realised that her passion project could become a viable business venture. They formally established the Seeds for Life Cooperative, focusing on organic urban farming.

Based in the Western Cape, the cooperative comprises five members who work with like-minded farmers to grow and sell organic vegetables to local residents at affordable prices.

They sell beetroot, spinach, spring onions, leeks, lettuce, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, and baby carrots.

“Our market is our local community, manufacturers, and the hospitality industry. From the beginning, we have been focused on providing good nutrition to our customers. That is the reason we went into organic farming,” she said.

With support from the Small Enterprise Development Finance Agency (Sedfa), the cooperative has expanded its production capacity and broadened its markets.

“Sedfa provided us with funding that we used to equip our processing facility — a six-by-three-metre smart shed in our backyard. We have also had the opportunity to market our products at exhibitions, expos, and trade shows,” Van Staden said.

The equipment includes a refrigerated vehicle, vacuum sealers, slicing and dicing machines, and solar panels. In addition, they were provided with office equipment such as laptops and mobile phones.

The cooperative has created eight job opportunities and plans to expand its operations so that its products become available at retailers.

“We are actively looking for a bigger property because, in the next two to three years, we envision having our own processing facility, where we will be able to help many more local farmers by giving them access to markets.

“We have high-nutrient vegetable powders — beetroot powder, spinach powder, and butternut and pumpkin powder. We are currently doing the nutritional testing on these products. Soon we will be on the shelves of retail stores,” Van Staden said.

To reach the Seeds for Life Cooperative, visit their Facebook page: Seeds for Life Organic Urban Farm.

For more information about Sedfa, log on to www.sedfa.org.za.