Stef Swanepoel from Kommetjie

Tell us a little about yourself!

My name is Stef Swanepoel, I live in Kommetjie in Cape Town but am an Eastern Cape girl at heart and by birth. I work in food systems – as a communicator, researcher, facilitator and activist.

For me, food production was the first act of co-creation with nature, of working with nature to generate foods, medicines, fibres and animal feed. It was and in many places in Africa continues to be a sacred act. This act of co-creation was the basis of culture – our way of being with others through rituals, ceremonies and social norms, which often form around food. It is why there is the term ‘culture’ in agriculture.

For me, at the heart of this is seed – the tiniest carrier of extraordinary genetic material that simultaneously feeds us and replicates itself, thousands of times over, adapting to changing conditions. 

How did you come to be where you are now?

My journey with food systems started when I was very young in my grandmother’s garden – I remember shelling peas at her kitchen table, harvesting spinach from her extensive food garden to placing pumpkins on the metal roof of the shed to dry out.

Thirty-five years later, I was living in Pointe Noir, Congo Brazzaville and spending time in the urban gardens surrounding the city, watching the farmers plant and harvest to take to market – where food didn’t last long because of the heat and lack of storage and processing options.

Returning to South Africa, I went back to study a masters in sustainable development to better understand how on a continent producing so much food, there were so many hungry and malnourished. I completed my thesis in 2014 and have since worked directly with farmers – the OV Organics Cooperative in Ocean View – and through the Knowledge Hub for Organic Agriculture and Agroecology in Southern African with farmer organisations in Malawi, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. 

If there was one thing you could offer as wisdom to people in places of financial or decision making power, what might it be?

We have to think beyond economics because the economy is an emergent outcome of the interaction between people and between people and the environment. The economy is nothing without these two elements. And we have to think about the way in which we do things – often interventions in food systems don’t look at the whole picture – the impact on social systems, the impact on women and youth, the impact on the seventh generation; i.e. how will actions today either boost or curtain the options available to generations in the future. 

Is there a particular thing you are working towards in your work?

I hope that my work contributes to a more holistic understanding of how food fits into our culture and the central role that it plays in building social cohesion and local economies.

I would love to see more people adopt an agroecological approach to life and not just to food production. Agroecological principles speak to finding synergies, acting on values, circular economies, solidarity and respect for all living creatures, including all people and their varying ways of knowing and being in the world. 

When you look at the South African food system, what changes have you seen over the course of your lifetime? 

Over the past 30 years, our food systems have become more corporatised. I think there are only about 2 000 commercial farmers who produce 80% of the food we see on supermarket shelves. The diversity of food varieties has decreased and the nutritional value of our food has been diminished. It costs about 60% more to eat healthily in South Africa, which is a travesty in a country with high rates of malnutrition.

In response to these trends, however, there is also a growing countermovement in the form of participatory guarantee systems (PGS). PGS South Africa has sparked a fast-growing movement of small-scale farmers in the country who are self-organising to produce organically for local markets, and drawing in consumers and retailers to certify production as organic through a peer-review system. This gives me a lot of hope.  

What are the most important problems that you think food researchers should focus on in the next decade? 

We know the biggest challenges in African farming systems are degraded soils, often from monocropping and use of harmful synthetic chemicals. We face the challenge of an increasing orientation towards cash crops and away from household and community nutritional security and access to markets and capital, and increasingly land, as it is used for industrial development and housing. There is lots of work being done.

One area that I think is underdeveloped is appropriate technology for small-scale farmers – this includes participatory plant breeding of farmer-selected local varieties, and enabling mechanisms for small-scale farming businesses. 

What are the most important problems that you think farmers in South Africa should focus on in the next decade?

All farmers in South Africa need to focus on regenerating our soils. Doing this generates a multitude of other benefits – improved soil health and fertility supports production of strong, nutritious plants, it provides a home for millions of beneficial organisms, it improves resilience to climate shocks, and it supports larger ecosystem services.