Transforming South Africa’s unjust food system: an argument for decolonization

Abstract

ABSTRACT This conceptual article argues for the need to reframe approaches to the South African food crisis in terms of decolonizing the food system. The point of departure is that the South African food system produces starkly unequal access to nutritious food, negative health outcomes, environmental destruction and a breakdown in social relations. The harms of this system disproportionately affect the poor, Black people and women. The historical roots of this unjust food system lie in colonialism, capitalism and apartheid, yet this coloniality continues in its modern global industrial incarnation. The colonial, capitalist values underpinning the food system have been normalized and have become hegemonic. This leaves little space for imagining – or fighting for – more just alternatives. Yet the framework of decolonization has the potential to create such a space to begin to challenge the hegemony of the current (neo)colonial/capitalist food system and replace the profit motive with the values of reciprocity, collectivity and inter-connectedness that underpinned pre-colonial food systems.