Kindness grows where it’s planted and at the University of Pretoria’s Giving Garden, it’s flourishing. This extraordinary space is more than just a garden… it’s a source of food, knowledge and hope, providing communities with the tools to cultivate a future where no one goes hungry.
Pretoria, South Africa (05 March 2025) – Kindness isn’t just about words – it’s about action, and sometimes, that action looks like a garden filled with life, learning, and the promise of a better future. At the University of Pretoria, kindness is quite literally taking root in the form of the Giving Garden, a special space that does exactly what its name suggests – it gives.
In 2024 alone, this 2,300m² garden provided cuttings, seedlings, and tubers of lesser-known but incredibly resilient crops to around 100 community food gardens across Gauteng.
This isn’t just about plants; it’s about food security, sustainability and the simple but profound act of sharing.
Tucked away in the Manie van der Schijff Botanical Garden on UP’s Hatfield Campus, the Giving Garden is a living library of orphan and indigenous crops – plants that were once essential food sources but have slowly faded from mainstream agriculture.
“Our Giving Garden is both a living garden and a philosophy, through which we introduce gardeners to the potential of orphan and indigenous crop plants as sources of food,” explains Richard Hay, Curator of the Future Africa Indigenous and Orphan Crops Collection.
This initiative isn’t just about preserving biodiversity; it’s about making sure that people have access to healthy, sustainable food sources.
Over the past century, an estimated 75% of the world’s crop diversity has been lost. Just six crop species now make up 58% of all agricultural produce worldwide – a startling statistic considering how many traditional and highly nutritious plants exist.
“Orphan crops were historically domesticated for and by the use of people, without access to the myriad inputs required to produce modern food crops,” says Jason Sampson, Head Curator of UP’s Manie van der Schijff Botanical Garden. “Such plants are thus eminently suited to an agricultural practice that is closer to nature.”
The garden houses everything from Ethiopian Kale and Mutshaina (a leafy vegetable from Venda) to Egyptian Walking Onions (an ancient hybrid that produces bulbs on its flower stalks instead of seeds), sunchokes (a North American tuberous sunflower), and Tsenza (a once-vital African root vegetable). There’s even chaya, a protein-packed South American tree spinach that thrives with regular cropping.
This garden isn’t just a research space – it’s a lifeline for those looking to grow their own food. The team behind the project, led by Hay and Sampson, work directly with community gardeners, NGOs, and small-scale farmers to ensure that the crops they distribute are not only easy to grow but also desirable for local diets.
“We are always trying to propagate as much crop material as possible with the biggest potential to feed communities,” Hay shares. “This is done in consultation with communities, to make sure that they would like to grow and eat such plants.”
One of the many groups benefiting from this generosity is the ABBA Embrace Foundation, an NGO supporting community food gardens to improve household food security. In December 2024, they received a donation of chaya cuttings – a plant that will keep giving long after the first harvest. Beyond community outreach, the Giving Garden is also a hands-on learning space for UP students and staff. It provides practical training in agroclimatology and sustainable crop production while allowing students to document their experiences through vlogs and research projects.
It’s also influencing university staff. Earlier this year, a focus group participated in a taste testing session to help determine which crops could be widely cultivated in future.
“The Giving Garden coordinates a skills transfer opportunity for staff and students looking to grow their own food,” says Tumelo Duke Rasebopye, a Diversity and Inclusion Specialist in UP’s Transformation Office. “It is a renewed approach to social justice interventions that is holistic, inclusive, and affirming.”
What started as a simple initiative in 2022 has quickly become part of UP’s long-term vision. The success of the original Giving Garden has already led to the inclusion of similar gardens in the university’s 2030 Spatial Development Plan, meaning more spaces like this will pop up on all UP campuses.
“In two short years, the ‘giving gardens’ concept has become part of the 2030 University of Pretoria Spatial Development Plan,” says Sampson.
Kindness grows when it’s nurtured, and thanks to UP’s Giving Garden, it’s flourishing in ways that will feed communities, preserve biodiversity, and inspire future generations to keep planting the seeds of change.
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