A food sovereignty insight into land, gender and justice in provincial agri-food governance: lessons from nongovernmental organisations in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Abstract

The author argues that food insufficiency and gender inequity are conjunctive social ills which require concomitant analysis and intervention. To assist, food sovereignty offers a viable heuristic mechanism to critique such a range of injustices associated with present food systems. However, despite the efforts of its promulgators, researchers regard food sovereignty’s nexus with gender dynamics as precarious. Given the extent to which agrarian social structures remain bastions of gender inequity, the shortcoming is likely to compromise food sovereignty’s transformative potential. Moreover, in acknowledging the concomitant feminisation of agriculture and deprivation, any failures in public and third sector strategy have most profound repercussions for smallholder women. Consequently, the author proposes an intersectional framework of feminist food sovereignty to centralise smallholder women in governance and development praxes. The framework considers a layered food systems approach which highlights the sociological dynamics surrounding intrahousehold food production, processing and consumption. In formulating this framework, the research undertook a qualitative analysis of third sector insights into food sovereignty and gender equity in rural KwaZulu-Natal. These findings furthered the conceptual link between food sovereignty and gender in context. Furthermore, to test the viability of such a framework as an apparatus of critique, analysis of relevant governance arrangements was undertaken. The feminist food sovereignty insight was imbricated within an existing diagnostic framework to engender holistic critique of food systems governance arrangements. Ultimately, the researcher offers multiple recommendations to consolidate governance and development praxes for the dual benefit of gender equity and food sufficiency.