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Beyond food security: women’s experiences of urban agriculture in Cape Town

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Abstract

Urban agriculture is an important source of food and income throughout Africa. The majority of cultivators on the continent are women who use urban agriculture to provide for their family. Much research on urban agriculture in Africa focuses on the material benefits of urban agriculture for women, but a smaller body of literature considers its social and psychological empowering effects. The present study seeks to contribute to this debate by looking at the ways in which urban agriculture empowers women on the Cape Flats, a region of Cape Town where urban agriculture is supported by nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). Based on interviews with cultivators, the findings show that NGO-run urban agriculture projects not only aid food security, but also help women to develop supportive networks that unlock benefits across the personal, social and economic spectrum.

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Abbreviations

NGO:

Non-governmental organisation

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Abalimi, Inity, Soil for Life and the Sozo Foundation, along with the cultivators affiliated with them, for the time and insights they gave to this research. This research was supported by a grant from Stellenbosch University’s Hope Project, through the Food Security Initiative. Dr Olivier would also like to thank the Africa Climate Change Adaptation Initiative (ACCAI) Network and the Open Society Foundation for supporting his fellowship at the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI), University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Johannesburg, Wits 2050, Gauteng Province, South Africa

    David W. Olivier

  2. Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag x1, Stellenbosch, Matieland 7602, Western Cape Province, South Africa

    Lindy Heinecken

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  1. David W. Olivier
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Correspondence to David W. Olivier.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Olivier, D.W., Heinecken, L. Beyond food security: women’s experiences of urban agriculture in Cape Town. Agric Hum Values 34, 743–755 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-017-9773-0

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