About us
Down2Earth Living Soil is a Non-profit organisation dedicated to sustainable food production and climate justice.
Regenerative Gardening & Ecological Design
- Soil Regeneration & composting
- Indigenous and agroecological planting methods
- Urban food garden design and maintenance
- Seed saving and heritage seed propagation
Mission
Our mission is to encourage, support, and to educate those who aspire to grow food in ways that enhance both the environment and the communities they serve.
Climate Justice & Community
- Climate education and workshop facilitation
- Integration of Indigenous ecological knowledge
- Policy research and environmental advocacy
- Participatory project design with communities
The Team
Daliwonga is an avid Agroecologist and Ecosocialist working at the intersection of climate justice and food sovereignty. He was first introduced to growing food and sacred soil work by his grand parents. He then rediscovered this path through an intro to permaculture principles and practice in 2010 at Ukuvuna Farms. He attributes his environmental advocacy to his beliefs; rituals of stewardship that involve water, plant-life, animals and air.
After completing the Living Soil course with Tony Bensusan, he interned for +18 months at Victoria Yards while also continuing his involvement at a community garden in Soweto. He received unformal training in Agroecology through a COPAC course at Wits and has been a self-directed student of various individuals and institutions offering Agroecology workshops and learning materials.
As a trained Agroecology facilitator and activist, he shares workshops with diverse groups on various topics for food sovereignty.
His views are published in an academic journal, and he serves as a guest lecturer at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he co-researches and teaches on traditional ecological knowledge and emerging technologies.
He’s current research centers the Seed as a multidimensional source of life, rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge & the collective pursuit of Food Sovereignty.
Tony has been immersed in the organic cultivation of vegetables and herbs for most of his life.
As a teenager he worked with Operation Grow teaching people in Soweto how to grow healthy food. Later as a student and with his family he provided a large portion of their daily needs utilising natural growing methods.
Whilst travelling in Africa working as a sound engineer on International documentary films he saw how people were living off the land and gained a lot of insight into traditional agriculture and “lost crops”.
He put this accumulation of knowledge to work on his farm on the Natal South Coast where he lived largely self- sustaining and off grid producing organic vegetables, fruit and processing these into pickles, jams, chutneys and even banana wine. International WWOOF visitors benefited from his expertise.
His desire to share his knowledge led him into urban farming at Victoria Yards where he continues to grow and improve the soil and everything in it and to teach others how to do it.
He also does corporate work in trying to improve the quality of life of communities by establishing food gardens concentrating on environmental sustainability, regeneration and community involvement driven by the desire to change the lives of people around him through gardening and access to healthy organic food.
Guerilla teams
Down 2 Earth Living Soil
There are environmental actvisits, urban farmers in Soweto, Germiston, Vaal, Durban, Cape Town and the rural Eastern Cape we’ve built solid relationships with over the years. This provides a sustainable pool of skilled collaborators and support for each project.