Abstracts Earth and Environmental Sciences

Unearthing the determinants required for off-grid subsistence : a case study

by Matthew Mentz

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is based on the personal four-year journey of the researcher in an attempt to develop an off-grid, sustainable self-sufficient livelihood and habitation on a 1 000-square metre piece of rural land in the heritage mission village of Suurbraak, Western Cape, South Africa. This single case study attempts to embody a comprehensive antithesis to the current rural settlement approach implemented in South Africa. The approach is philosophical, applying Hegel’s “determinate negation” conception of reality, as dialectic between a conception of “thesis” as global, scientific and regulated resulting in large-scale agriculture, poisoning of nature and inappropriate low-cost housing and its “antithesis” as grounded, philosophical, healthy subsistence habitation on the actual land. This study, shaped by a literature review, proposes a concept coined ‘niche settlement’, comprising four focus areas as regards sustainable self-sufficiency: an owner-built dwelling from local materials, farm produce for consumption and self-medication, rain and energy harvesting, and taking responsibility for waste. In order to validate the case study contextually, an action research methodological approach was adopted. This began with a field study to interview marginal small-scale farmers, enriched by a land-use survey in the Suurbraak agri-village, in order to clarify the determinants for successful subsistence. These were land availability, proximity of land to homestead, appropriate scale, access to water, enabling legislation, and access to inputs and labour. The critical nature of these determinants is then shown as regards the niche settlement case study. The interplay of Swellendam Municipality regulations reveals contradictions that entail that the above determinants are not facilitated. This threatens a vulnerable two-century old agrarian heritage. The ensuing dialectic between the researcher and municipal officials who - when confronted by the contradictions - undertook to revise certain zoning decisions that threatened the viability of niche settlement approaches. The determinants may prove fertile ground for further research as criteria to shape rural settlement policy with respect to land use, particularly given the need to factor in the looming global recession, the food crisis and peak oil. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is op die vier jaar lange persoonlike reis van die navorser self baseer. Dit behels 'n poging om 'n kwart akker stuk grond in die landelike erfenis sending-dorp van Suurbraak, in die Wes-Kaap Provinsie in Suid-Afrika te bewoon en daarop ‘n off-grid, volhoubare en selfversorgende bestaan te ontwikkel. Hierdie enkele gevallestudie poog om 'n omvattende antitese te beliggaam tot die benadering tot landelike nedersetting soos tans in Suid-Afrika geïmplementeer. Die benadering is filosofies, en pas toe Hegel se "beslissende weiering" konsepsie van die werklikheid, as dialektiek tussen 'n opvatting van die "tesis" as: globaal, wetenskaplik en gereguleerd…