The hallmark of a truly sustainable system is its ability to regenerate itself. When it comes to farming, the key to sustainable agriculture is healthy soil, since this is the foundation for present and future growth.

What attracted me to Waterkloof wines, as a horse lover, was that they use horses in their vineyards. I reckoned it was to lower their carbon footprint, but Christiaan Loots, the farm manager, assured me that it was economically motivated.

Tonight, an important film is being shown at The Hub in Woodstock. "How to save the world - One Man, One Cow, One Planet".

Over 100 civil society organizations from Africa and around the world sent a letter earlier this week to African negotiators attending the UN global climate talks in Durban, calling for them to reject efforts to place agricultural soils within a carbon market.

‘Farming for the Future’ is a holistic approach based on working with nature instead of against it, which seeks to combine the best of conventional farming with the best of organic farming. Woolworths recently audited 15 of their largest fruit and vegetable growers, who supply some 37% fresh produce on a total area of about 45 000 hectares.

Leeks, lettuce, lemon juice, lamb, loaves of bread and lovingly made mozzarella. The Dargle Valley is home to many small producers of good food. Most homesteads have a vegetable garden to supply their kitchens and often share the surplus with neighbours.

Dargle Local Living is an initiative aimed at building a better future for our community, starting by listing as much of the food as possible, which is locally produced in a small, sustainable way.

Where to find the yummiest feta cheese (just along the D17), have your haircut (behind the trading store), stock up on essential oils (on the hill of D666), drop off your bottles for recycling (Dargle Primary School) or buy a cake made with love for a friend's birthday tea.

Having already covered the planning, preparing and planting of your vegetable garden, this month we look at the vital importance of mulching. If you have never mulched before, now is the time! Read below for five reasons you should start mulching.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Marketing Research Centre (EMRC) will jointly host the AgriBusiness Forum 2011 entitled 'Engaging the Private Sector for Africa's Agri-Food Growth' from 16th to 19th October 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In the southern hemisphere, the first of September is officially the beginning of spring. This is the time to be planting the vegetables that will feed you throughout summer and the early stages of autumn.

Ancient Heirloom seed gardens provide the same nutritious and delicious foods that humanity has relied and prospered with for untold thousands of generations. Heirloom plants provide productive seeds that you can share with others or keep for the following year. The plants give you intensive flavor, intensive nutrition, and spectacular color in your cooking.

Prolonged drought, aseasonal cold spells and extreme temperature highs in occasional years all negatively impact farmers by reducing agricultural production through a loss of livestock or crops. What then, are the possible impacts of global climate change; which predicts temperature increases of between ~ 2 to 4oC and more variable rainfall by the end of the 21st century?

Composting is the ideal winter activity. While the garden is resting, you can be busy preparing fresh nutrients, a concoction of vitality to add to the garden during the growing season. I like to add compost in two different ways: firstly, with new gardens I dig in a lot of compost before planting. As we saw in the last article, this improves the consistency of both clay and sandy soil types. Secondly, I add compost around the plants by placing it on the top of the garden throughout the growing season. This acts as an insulating mulch and the nutrients seep into the soil and feed the plants.

The one thing more heart-warming than food being planted for a crèche in Kayamandi, is seeing the teenagers from Kayamandi High School pitching in with absolute joy. On 19 July they contributed their 67 minutes for Mandela by planting spinach, onions, lettuce, beetroot and spices next to the Siyavuya crèche, a project by the Vuya Endaweni Community Conservation Partnership.

The one thing more heart-warming than food being planted for a crèche in Kayamandi, is seeing the teenagers from Kayamandi High School pitching in with absolute joy. On 19 July they contributed their 67 minutes for Mandela by planting spinach, onions, lettuce, beetroot and spices next to the Siyavuya crèche, a project by the Vuya Endaweni Community Conservation Partnership.

My bookcase groans with the weight of green literature. Permaculture for idiots, double digging for novices, you get the picture. You see I am passionate about gardens, food and the planet. My garden should, in theory, be prolific with delicious organic food.

Despite my cerebral imbibing of all knowledge organic, I have never been able to translate that knowledge into a food producing garden. Apart from some herbs and sometimes lettuce I have never found much favour with food gardens.

Last month we started this series with an article on how to plan and design your vegetable garden. This month we move on to the most important ingredient in a successful garden, the soil. We will look at the various soil types and how to enrich it. Composting is an important part of enriching the soil, so come back next month where we will cover how to make your own compost and how to use a chicken tractor.

Pressures on our natural capital, such as alien plant species, water pollution and overuse of resources, have caused a chain reaction of negative effects threatening our agricultural sector. Whether it is visible like sedimentation in our dams, or less visible such as fewer effective pollinators, the impact is enormous.

The European Parliament today voted to strengthen a draft EU law giving member states a new right to ban genetically modified (GM) crops from being grown in their territories.

Greenpeace welcomes this positive outcome, but warns that national bans are no substitute for thorough safety testing at EU level.

Greenpeace EU agriculture policy adviser Stefanie Hundsdorfer said: 'The European Parliament today added real punch to draft laws to protect our farms and food. But let's not forget that GM contamination doesn't respect borders. National bans are no substitute for thorough safety testing at a European level, something the EU is failing to do so far.

Conferences are known to be uptight, impersonal, tense and boring. Not the biodynamic conference. Biodynamic farmers have none of these qualities. The conference, hosted by BDAASA (Biodynamic Agriculture Association of South Africa) on 16-18 of June was held at a wet and muddy Bloublommetjieskloof in Wellington ' one of the first biodynamic farms in SA.

Winter milk is creamier than summer milk resulting in a richer, smoother cheese, giving the cheese its "winter" character. One of the things we love about our farm is that we can allow our goats to just be natural. We don't force them by feeding them a too high protein diets which, result in disease, because we want to push up their production. Winter simply means less milk and less cheese and that's fine by us. Also, less productive goats. That's why Nefertiti (see picture) who is an older goat, still has a valid place on our farm. In a factory setup she would have been slaughtered a couple of years ago. Here we value her for her contribution and her great personality.

'Organic farming has been there for many years, sitting on the fringe, but not receiving much attention,' said Thabo Ramashala, Director of Plant Production for the Department Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries at a national organic policy workshop in Cape Town. 'Government wants to find a way for the organic sector to grow and find its place.'

Welcome to THE STOEP HARVEST, an exciting new addition to the Green Times. Once a month, Sam Adams will be writing an article that looks at how to design, create and maintain a successful organic vegetable and herb garden. There will be information for both first-time gardeners as well as those more experienced.

The bagged organic baby mixed greens on sale a Whole Foods Market in Bethesda, MD, USA are not very "green" at all. To grow the lettuce, vast amounts of water must be moved from the Colorado River to California, the most hydrologically altered landmass on the planet. The lettuce is picked, packaged, washed and shipped in refrigerated trucks (because it's perishable) roughly 2,800 miles across America. The cost? $3.99. If you believe that the demand for water and oil are going to grow, this five oz. bag of greens will only get more expensive.

Last Friday in Geneva it was agreed and announced that Endosulfan was too toxic to have on the planet. The Air That I Breathe (TATIB) Foundation, founded in Stellenbosch, has thanked their South African supporters for their commitment and endurance. After extensive review and debate, and years of work on behalf of especially the chairman, Jurgen Schirmacher, the chemical pesticide has finally been banned globally.

The Uitkyk wine estate is the newest winery to become a Biodiversity & Wine Initiative (BWI) Champion and the 20th to do so. The estate is at 591 ha one of the largest in the Stellenbosch area. Uitkyk has set aside more than 312 ha of virgin veld, or 52% of the total property for conservation! The standard requirement for championship status is 10 ha of virgin veld.

'There is no disputing the impact of climate change. The 2011 vintage marks the third consecutive harvest characterised by higher temperatures outside the regular parameters, as well as unseasonal rains, dry spells and excessively strong winds, all of which have affected crop size.Short, sharp and brutal,' is the way Erhard Wolf, Distell's chief grape and wine buyer (pictured), has described the 2011 Cape vintage.

When Simon Gear studied palaeoclimatology they looked at data sets harvested at glaciers as significant, but never before had he seen or touched one. Until he accompanied Justin Smith, sustainability manager at Woolworths, and their team up Kilimanjaro last month.

'For me it was a big deal and I was elated to find how strong I felt at the top. I was worried along the way,' said Simon during an interview with Elma Pollard from the Green Times.

They were on a mission to learn more about the impact of climate change on Kili's melting ice cap and the resultant impact on the organic coffee farmers who are dependent on the water from the caps for their coffee plantations on the slopes. About 68 000 coffee farmers are organised into a cooperative, the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperation Union.

On the day of the release of annual industry-sponsored figures, a new report from Friends of the Earth International reveals that the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops across Europe continues to decline ' with an increasing number of national bans, and decreasing numbers of hectares dedicated to GMOs [1].

All commentators agree that food production will have to increase substantially this century to meet the future challenges and demands in the global food system. But there are very different views about how this should best be achieved.

Sustainable agricultural intensification is defined as producing more output from the same area of land, while reducing the negative environmental impacts, and at the same time improving natural resources and the flow of environmental services.

The UK Government Office of Science Foresight project on Global Food and Farming Futures commissioned 40 case studies of existing projects from 20 countries of Africa where sustainable intensification had been developed, promoted or practiced during the last ten years.