Exotic crop offers way out of poverty

Nine villages in the Eastern Cape have formed the country’s first co-operative that is swapping the communities’ agricultural land for bamboo plantations in an attempt to establish the first bamboo industry in the district.

Rising poverty levels, which some blamed on the collapse of the then Ciskei administration’s agriculture programme, have affected villages in the Amahlathi local municipality near Stutterheim and Keiskammahoek as communities largely lack resources to continue with vegetable farming.