Blessed with sufficient underground water – an essential prerequisite – Wolwedans started its horticulture activities ten years ago, motivated by the desire to enhance the variety and quality of fresh lettuce available and to have an ample supply of fresh herbs for use in our kitchens.

We also started to pursue animal husbandry in a way that supports our sustainability goals, which included welcoming pigs to the Wolwedans “family” to help us responsibly manage some types of waste that our operations produce. After all, pigs are known to consume food leftovers very efficiently! Poultry, including both chickens and ducks, was also introduced in 2019, giving Wolwedans guests and staff access to fresh eggs on a continuous basis.

Our plan is to further expand our horticulture activities to include mushroom production, additional sustainability-aligned animal husbandry, and an indigenous plant nursery. We would test and perfect methods on site and then incorporate them into training programmes in Maltahöhe through "RuralRevive" and at our entry-level vocational training at Waldorf Schook Windhoek.

"Growing our own" has commercial benefits linked to the quality of the Wolwedans experience as well as the sale of produce from the Foundation-owned gardens to the commercial entity. This fresh, organic produce also contributes to the health and well-being of our team, while (very) local sourcing has the complementary advantage of reducing our carbon footprint related to food miles (the distance from farm to plate). The latter is a concept in need of scaling up, not only locally but globally, and will be featured regularly in our advocacy activities.

Food security, economic opportunities, the well-being of people, carbon footprint reduction, and a heightened sense of consciousness – so many reasons why horticulture development is a logical 5Cs intervention under The AridEden Project.