By Bonelwa Nogqaza and Rebecca Bank
This blog tracks the progress of the seedlings initiative that the Women RISE project established as part of engaging and contributing towards the recovery plans and path that the rural areas of the Eastern Cape are embarking on. The initiative was implemented in the communities where the project is conducted, and it has not only revived hope among the villagers but has also proven to be a sustainable livelihood strategy in combating the hunger crisis in rural Eastern Cape.
Food Security and Covid
Following moments of rupture like COVID-19, communities often struggle with scarce economic opportunities and an uncertain recovery path. This is evident in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape, where widespread hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity persist. The pandemic significantly exacerbated these social challenges, pushing families further into vulnerability. Lockdowns disrupted food supply chains, led to the loss of livelihoods and income, and contributed to a global economic downturn. This perfect storm intensified the challenges faced by these communities, making targeted interventions crucial to address the root causes and support a sustainable recovery.
Food security exists when “all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 2001). Within the global development discourse, food security is often conceptualised using a four-pillared framework: access, availability, utilisation and stability. However, this framework, which has evolved since the 1970s, is now being questioned by food security experts in the context of global economic, social and environmental crises.
Clapp et al. (2022) push for an expanded framework that includes two additional pillars—sustainability and agency. Others, such as Battersby (2018), argue that outdated frameworks from the Global North may hinder achieving Sustainable Development Goals in the Global South. The concept of ‘agency’ bridges gaps between community and individual levels of food security, encouraging 'active food citizens' rather than 'passive consumers,' while sustainability emphasises long-term environmentally sound food production and distribution practices. Despite their importance, these two pillars are often absent from policy documents. Clapp et al. emphasise the need for qualitative indicators to close gaps between policy and practice.
A recent study by the HSRC revealed that only 27% of the Eastern Cape is food secure, hence food insecurity in the province should be top priority for government. This is especially true in rural areas where we have been conducting research where a changing climate, poor infrastructure and fragile livelihoods post-covid have limited people’s access to markets, food, and economic opportunities. Several studies have highlighted the links between home gardens and sustainable livelihoods for food security. We have observed similar trends among women where ownership of home gardens and access to seedlings can become an essential coping strategy to combat food insecurity and poverty.
Home Gardening in Tsolo
Ethnographic research in Tsolo also revealed that homestead gardening was once a vital livelihood strategy for households, but climate change and rising living costs have made it challenging for villagers, who largely rely on social grants, to revive their dormant gardens. The pandemic has further exacerbated the decline of homestead gardening, contributing to increased poverty. Recognising the importance of reviving this sustainable practice, the Women Rise team aims to support rural communities in returning to productive homestead gardening, promoting food security and self-sufficiency. To achieve this, the Women rise team has contributed seedlings to the communities and encouraged them to maintain their gardens, paving the way for a resilient recovery process.
Home gardening also plays a crucial role in empowering women, who are often the driving force behind this practice. The responsibilities and participation in home gardening, including land preparation, planting, weeding, harvesting, and marketing. Despite these variations, home gardens have a proven track record of successfully alleviating poverty and enhancing household food security. Therefore, it is essential to identify the constraints that hinder ownership and development of home gardens, which are a vital contributor to poverty alleviation, in order to provide effective solutions and support this initiative.
The Initiative
Figure 1: Community workshop in Tsolo (Taken by Bonelwa Nogqaza, July 2024)
Earlier in the year, in March, we started with our community engagements workshops where we invited communities where the research is conducted to engage us on thematic issues pertinent in those areas. In Tsolo, we conducted a homestead and communal farming workshop as demonstrated in the above picture where we distributed 4000 seedlings to the 57 households that attended the workshop. The ultimate goal for this was to help drive and contribute towards the realisation of SDG2 (zero hunger) through promoting agricultural practices. As received through the conversations after the workshop, promoting homestead and communal farming is the first fundamental step towards intervening in the current poverty and malnutrition crisis that the Eastern Cape province is currently battling with. The contribution of seedlings from the Women RISE project is the first step towards ensuring that the village landscape can overcome poverty.
The Progress
Figure 2: Images of community gardens (Taken by Bonelwa Nogqaza, July 2024)
As part of our monitoring and evaluation efforts, I encouraged villagers to take ownership of their gardens and document the progress of their gardens. The results are impressive: most households have expanded their gardens, adding more variety to their crops. Those who had never planted before have now found the motivation to maintain their gardens, with some even cultivating fast-growing vegetables like spinach multiple times. The Women RISE project's home gardening initiative has truly revitalised the village, exceeding our expectations. Three months ago, our goal was to provide a sustainable path to economic recovery from the pandemic's devastation. Today, we see a budding agrarian practice that has not only motivated young and old alike but also inspired youth to explore expanded farming practices, including poultry and piggery.
As a result of the pandemic, rural communities have experienced significant de-agrarianisation, with farms left bare and fallow as many are too impoverished to continue farming. The pressure on livelihoods has been enormous. The Women RISE seedlings initiative in Tsolo is a promising step toward bridging the gap between women and farming. While initiatives like this provide local women with the opportunity to feed their families and revitalise their gardens, sustainability and agency, as Clapp argues, are essential pillars to ensuring that food security is both long-term and accessible.
To achieve this, deeper engagement beyond the Women RISE project is needed. This includes collaboration with local leadership, government initiatives, and civil society to raise awareness about the importance of seedling programs in promoting sustainability and agency. Enhancing women’s access to resources is crucial for ensuring their families have access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food.
Our fieldwork has shown that many other communities in the Eastern Cape remain deeply connected to their land, home gardens, and agricultural livelihoods and despite the pandemic’s constraints, there is a clear desire to reconnect with and revitalise these practices. However, we argue that in order to close the gap created by the pandemic, greater attention must be given to how initiatives like this strengthen pillars of agency and sustainability.
References:
FAO, 2001. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2001. Rome. http://www.fao.org/ docrep/003/y1500e/y1500e00.htm.
Clapp, J., Moseley, W.G., Burlingame, B. and Termine, P., 2022. The case for a six-dimensional food security framework. Food Policy, 106, p.102164.
Battersby, J. (2016) ‘MDGs to SDGs – new goals, same gaps: the continued absence of urban food security in the post-2015 global development agenda’, African Geographical Review, 36(1), pp. 115–129. doi: 10.1080/19376812.2016.1208769.
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