This paper draws on the results of a mixed-methods study that investigates whether urban gardener networks in a low-income neighbourhood in Cape Town are contributing to urban agriculture and food resilience. The findings reveal that the urban gardeners are organised into largely fragmented informal networks whose primary goal is to enhance food resilience. While these networks have succeeded in disseminating information, they have not been able to empower urban gardeners in low-income neighbourhoods to access resources beyond non-governmental organisation assistance. Also, the home gardeners have not succeeded to reorganise, both in terms of form and function, in order to overcome the underlying stress factors, such as poverty, that continue to weaken home gardens in the Cape Flats area. We argue that engagement with urban gardener networks can be a useful way of framing the debate on food resilience in low-income areas of African cities.

本文借鉴了一项混合方法研究的结果，该研究调查了开普敦低收入社区的城市园丁网络是否有助于城市农业和粮食恢复。研究结果表明，城市园丁被组织成很大程度上分散的非正式网络，其主要目标是提高粮食弹性。虽然这些网络在传播信息方面取得了成功，但它们无法让低收入社区的城市园丁获得非政府组织援助以外的资源。此外，家庭园丁还没有成功地在形式和功能方面进行重组，以克服潜在的压力因素，例如贫困，这些因素继续削弱 Cape Flats 地区的家庭花园。