I am a creature of habit. Change is not usually one of my favourite things. This pandemic has forced me to become a lot more adaptable, as change can happen at any time and my once beautifully organised, colour-coded 2020 calendar has had many cancellations, postponements and unexpected additional tasks. Change is as good as a holiday, they say, and we sure ain't getting any holidays this year, so we find ourselves looking for the positive changes!
The best change by far has been the warmer temperatures, yay! I am a completely summer human. My folks like to sit on their stoep and bake in the winter sunshine "like little dassies," as my mom likes to say. With winter coming to an end, the Namaqualand daisies are dipping their heads and seeds are about to drop. This means you'll soon be able to include a pack of seeds in your order to plant next Autumn to ensure a colourful bee pit stop in the otherwise drab winter landscape. There are now tiny little fruits on the peach trees, telling us that spring is about to arrive in earnest and the gardener in me is itching to get seeds in the ground!
As the old saying goes, when you know better, you do better. So other changes we've included are switches to higher-quality, organic ingredients in our products. It is no easy feat to find organic ingredients in South Africa. They tend to be more expensive, but we feel that including these ingredients supports organic farmers and hopefully will increase the demand, and eventually bring down the price of what we consider to be the best practice in farming. Why organic? I hear you say. And what is organic, anyway? It's kind of difficult to find a clear definition of organic farming, as it tends to differ country by country and in South Africa, we're a little bit behind the rest of the world with only a draft policy not yet published to describe state regulations of labeling a product as "organic." Basically, organic farming should include the health of the environment, farm in such a way that avoids input of chemical fertilizers, avoids chemical pest control, promotes soil health, promotes social benefits for farmers and workers and works with natural cycles to conserve resources and promote sustainable practices to ensure land productivity for future generations. There are debates about exclusion of genetically modified organisms as part of the definition of organic, but that is a whole new non-recyclable can of unfarmed worms.
To understand why we prefer to provide our clients with organic ingredients, we need to look at traditional farming practices. In a highly competitive market, farmers need to farm in such a way that maximises production with minimal labour. So if you want to farm mielies, you go in with a tractor, churn up the soil to make it nice and soft, pop in rows and rows of seeds and wait. Ensuring a big productive harvest means adding loads of chemical fertilizer to the soil. Trouble is, all that freshly churned, chemically enriched soil brings weed seeds to the surface and with all that sunlight and water available, they can't help but take over to cover the soil (which is kind of their job as pioneer species). So now the farmer has to come in, guns blazing, with herbicides to rid his crop of weeds. Chemicals designed to extinguish the weeds do their job well, and then leach unseen into the soil. Next, the baby mielies emerge, unhampered by weeds. Having row after row, field after field of their favourite snack, insects can't help but move in and quickly start families and make more and more babies. Soon the farmer faces risk of losing his entire crop to hungry beasties. Out come the big guns again and pesticides get sprayed far and wide to wipe out the goggas.
If all goes according to the traditional farmer's plan, a large harvest of mielies is sold at a low price, ensuring happy customers and a profitable venture for the farmer. The true cost is hidden in the soil. Leaching of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides decimates the under-soil ecology. With no friendly earthworms, fungi, beneficial bacteria and other natural farmer friends, soil quality is poor and will need input from chemical fertilizers all over again to make anything grow, and so the vicious cycle continues. This is not even to mention the contamination of ground water, runoff into rivers and the ocean, causing algal blooms and negatively impacting ecosystems kilometres away from the farm. Added to that, the actual mielie that ends up on your plate may contain trace elements of the pesticides aimed at wiping out bug populations. It's unclear if these toxins can build up in our bodies and lead to negative health effects. Overseas there is mandatory testing of acceptable levels of toxins, and if the food item has lower than these levels, it's considered safe for human consumption. I'm not aware of any such testing conducted on South African foods, but I stand to be corrected.
Taking all of this into account, we at Rooted Herbivores strive to ensure that our offerings are produced in the most environmentally beneficial way possible, while maximising health benefits. As far as we can, we are growing as much of our produce as possible. This means we know there are no pesticides, chemical fertilizers or degrading soil practices. This also means no preservatives and a much bigger human effort required to weed by hand, plant crops strategically to minimise pest invasion, add to the soil by continuously adding our home made compost and beneficial bacteria by-products of our worm farm. Inevitably a gogga will creep in here or there, who has escaped our encouragement of their natural predators, our growing of pest deterring crops and organically acceptable additives for deterring pests. Here my motto is, rather the caterpillar you can see than the poison you can't.
Where we can't produce ingredients (oats for our crunchies, coconut oil for our dairy-free butter, cinnamon for our cinnamon pecan nut butter, strawberries and figs for our jams, onions for our chutneys), we have made the switch to organic producers. You may notice bigger oat flakes in the crunchies and a more cinnamony flavour in our nut butter, thanks to the substitution of organic ingredients.
Another change we've implemented is switching from cotton twine to sisal in our packaging. We initially selected cotton twine as it's a natural fibre, and biodegradable, yay! Further research revealed that it's a really water-intensive crop and the manufacturing process involves chemical bleaching and other environmentally-unkind practises. We trialed the use of hemp twine and you may notice some of our products still going out with the remainder of that experiment. We ended up opting for sisal, as the hemp is still blended with cotton and is currently produced on such a small scale locally that the cost would then have to be passed on to our clients. Sisal fibre is produced from the agave plant, which requires very little water to grow and is a by-product of agave syrup farming. The natural fibre is also unbleached and you'll notice our products going out with a more rustic look.
My inner garden nerd has been doing cartwheels since the arrival of a second rain tank to help irrigate our ever-expanding produce bed. The tank is here, now we just need the rain!
Ah, I could ramble on for ages about the eco friendly practices we're trying to employ, and the great sense of satisfaction I get from producing high quality products using only best ingredients. But as the sun is up now, it's time for me to get out of my pjs and into my gumboots to get seeds in the ground!
Be sure to place your order with us (see latest pricelist attached, or visit our website at https://rootedherbivores.wixsite.com/artisanbakery) via whatsapp or email. If you're in the East Rand, we'll be doing a delivery there next week Tuesday (18 August) and our Randburg supporters can get your orders in for Thursday, 27 August.
Socially-distanced high five if you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter!
Claire
Eco warrior
Researcher
Emergent change embracer