Double crisis for small scale food-system actors
Multiple crisis highlight need to build local resilience in the food system African food systems and Covid-19BlogFeatured Blog

Multiple crisis highlight need to build local resilience in the food system

By Nduduzo Majozi Small-scale farmers, food processors and traders in KwaZulu-Natal recently came together to plan how they could recover from the double crisis of Covid-19 and an insurgency which swept across the province in July during a wave of mass looting. Already reeling from the impacts of Covid-19 and the government’s response to the pandemic, which favoured large-scale farmers…
PLAAS
November 8, 2021
Snoek, the lifeblood of West Coast fishing towns BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Snoek, the lifeblood of West Coast fishing towns

By Maia Nangle The snoek run is a quintessential part of life in fishing communities on the West Coast and in the Cape Town metropolitan area. This bony fish, which has a distinctive taste due to the anchovies and sardines on which it preys, is consumed throughout the year, but particularly at Easter. Although snoek can be caught year-round, it…
PLAAS
October 21, 2021
women farming in Africa
Covid-19 impacts on tourism and horticulture producers in Tanzania BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Covid-19 impacts on tourism and horticulture producers in Tanzania

By Rose Qamara July should be the beginning of the high tourism season in northern Tanzania. It is a time of year when tourists flock to witness the great migration of millions of wildebeest from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, across the Mara River, and into the Maasai Mara National Park in Kenya. It should also be a season…
PLAAS
September 21, 2021
Food producers, traders and vendors should be prioritised in Tanzania’s Covid-19 relief package BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Food producers, traders and vendors should be prioritised in Tanzania’s Covid-19 relief package

By Luitfred Kissoly and Azizi Rweyemamu and Sadikiely Dalley As Covid-19 continues to spread and mutate across the globe, national governments are playing catch-up in their policy responses to the socio-economic threats posed by the pandemic, and the programmes adopted have been quite varied. For example, while many governments in Africa have rolled out targeted relief and stimulus programmes, relatively…
PLAAS
August 16, 2021
African Food Systems, Gender Dynamics and SSF Perspectives BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

African Food Systems, Gender Dynamics and SSF Perspectives

By Moenieba Isaacs, Patricia Blankson Akakpo, Maia Nagel, and Editrudith Lukanga On 3 June, the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape hosted a webinar on the African food systems, gender dynamics and Small-scale fisheries (SSF) perspectives.  This webinar formed part of the TBTI open house global World Oceans Week  – and…
PLAAS
August 16, 2021
south africa transkei
What landmark KwaZulu-Natal court ruling means for land reform in South Africa BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

What landmark KwaZulu-Natal court ruling means for land reform in South Africa

By Ben Cousins In a landmark judgment a South African high court has declared that people living on customary land in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, notionally held in trust by the Ingonyama (king) of the Zulu people, are the “true and beneficial owners” of that land. It confirms that the Ingonyama Trust Board is not the real owner of this land. It, therefore, cannot…
PLAAS
June 28, 2021
The ‘silent’ dispossession of customary land rights holders for urban development in Zimbabwe BlogFeaturedFeatured Blog

The ‘silent’ dispossession of customary land rights holders for urban development in Zimbabwe

By Phillan Zamchiya, Owen Dhliwayo, Cynthia Gwenzi and Claris Madhuku The dominance of and preoccupation with the radical repossession of largely white-owned commercial farms – since 2000 – for reallocation to millions of black families, although very important, has occluded attention to contradictory but silent processes of state-led dispossession of black communities living under communal tenure systems in Zimbabwe’s rural…
PLAAS
June 21, 2021
Zambia’s new customary tenure relations and implications for women and policy BlogFeaturedFeatured Blog

Zambia’s new customary tenure relations and implications for women and policy

By Phillan Zamchiya, Jesinta Kunda, Elias Simbeye and Dyless Mbewe New customary tenure relations that transcend the dualism between statutory and idealised customary systems as officially reflected in land policies are emerging in Zambia. What is driving this process? What are the new features? Who are the winners and the losers? What are the wider benefits and challenges that can…
PLAAS
June 18, 2021
Small-scale food traders squeezed under Covid BlogFeatured BlogUncategorized

Small-scale food traders squeezed under Covid

By Nduduzo Majozi and Nkanyiso Gumede Although many supermarkets made significant profits during South Africa’s hard lockdown, business was harder for informal vendors and bakkie traders in Pietermaritzburg whose incomes fell dramatically, write Nduduzo Majozi and Nkanyiso Gumede The Maharaj’s fruit and vegetable shop is a family business which has been in existence for more than 50 years. Started by…
PLAAS
June 11, 2021