Climate and food inequality: the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign response

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on climate and food inequalities while highlighting food sovereignty responses. It provides an analysis of climate inequalities ramifying through the world today. At the same time, food inequality is conceptually clarified as a counter approach to food security. It is argued that food inequality is consistent with the case for food sovereignty. Moreover, the combination of climate and food inequalities also highlight the complexity of climate crises and the challenges they pose for food regimes. The article further highlights the emergence of the food sovereignty response and systemic alternative. Taking this further is a case study of the transformative politics of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and its constitutive approach to various forms of power from below.

KEYWORDS:

• Carbon capitalism
• climate change
• inequality
• food sovereignty
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Vishwas Satgar http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4572-9797

Notes

1 The recent International Panel on Climate Change report highlights this challenge. See IPPC (2018).

2 See Magdoff and Tokar (2010). They highlight in this volume how food sovereignty has emerged at the frontlines of agricultural and food crises. Andree, Ayres, Bosia, and Massicotte (2014) show how food sovereignty has become central to theory, policy and contentious politics about food in different parts of the world. Williams and Holt-Gimenez (2017) show how the US Food Sovereignty Alliance works across various communities.

3 See SAFSC newsletters documenting the bread march and speak-out (SAFSC, 2016b), and COPAC’s (2017) activist tool on water sovereignty.

4 The SAHRC co-hosted a hunger tribunal with SAFSC in 2015 to receive testimony from South African citizens. In 2018, the SAHRC set up a Section 11 committee to advise it on the right to food, which included representation from the SAFSC. Section 11 Committees are advisory structures comprised of experts from different institutions and disciplines, who advise the Commission on matters and interventions relating to a particular right, in this case the right to food.

5 English and Xhosa versions are available at SAFSC (2018c).

6 See Bennie and Satgoor (2018) and Satgar (2019).

7 All of these activities have been documented in SAFSC newsletters. See www.safsc.org.za.

8 By the end of 2018, 12 newsletters had been produced.

9 This includes a solidarity economy activist guide, a worker cooperative guide, a food sovereignty activist guide, a seed saving guide, a water sovereignty activist guide, a land-use guide and two animations, one on hunger and another on water sovereignty. All these guides can be accessed at www.safsc.org.za.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vishwas Satgar

Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is the principal investigator for the Emancipatory Futures Studies project and he edits the Democratic Marxism book series. He chairs the board of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre and co-founded the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign.

Jane Cherry

Jane Cherry is the executive manager at the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre. Her Master's research focused on food sovereignty in South Africa. Through COPAC, Jane has been involved in the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign, the Wits Food Sovereignty Centre and has co-developed various campaigning tools.