It's time to get territorial — for food security, jobs and the environment

Daily Maverick

07-05-2025

A study in 2019 found crops like rice and wheat are declining due to the climate crisis, while sorghum, which is more drought-resistant, had an increased harvest.
With the climate crisis, macroeconomic factors (like the US-proposed 30% duty on South African citrus) and non-communicable diseases, agroecological farming with diverse food and localised markets is a way to protect against shocks to the system. In other words, fewer trucks and ships travelling long distances, fewer fast food outlets and food deserts in townships, more rural and urban farmer cooperatives, and more local markets with affordable varieties of produce.
We are facing three pandemics: undernutrition, obesity, and climate change, warns the 2019 Lancet Commission on Obesity report.
Conventional food systems are industrialised global production and marketing chains, with the free circulation of ultraprocessed products, according to a 2022 article on territorial markets in Brazil. This system is connected to malnutrition, obesity, environmental damage, and inequalities, it emphasised.
To transform the food production chain, strengthening more territorialised food systems is one proposed solution.
'Territorial markets are close-to-home food supply chains that operate within a specific region or community. They can be quite diverse in form — such as farmers' markets, street vendors, cooperatives, and public distribution systems — and they primarily sell food from small-scale producers, processors, and vendors,' said Jennifer Clapp, a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, to Daily Maverick.
Local markets, less industry concentration
'Territorial markets… support livelihoods for small-scale producers and sustain diverse food cultures. They improve access to diverse and affordable food, especially for marginalised communities. And they are resilient — fostering biodiverse small-scale farming and being agile in the face of shocks,' Clapp told Daily Maverick.
The study in Brazil echoed the sentiment that territorial markets are more resilient in the face of adversity. It found that placing local actors/institutions and resources at the core of rural development reinforced localised food systems centred in small circuits of production-consumption. This adds to sustainability by shortening supply chains and diversifies the local economy.
Agricultural economists were sceptical about whether territorial markets would be able to ensure a supply of food for urban areas, but they were locked into a particular way of thinking about farming, said Scott Drimie, Southern African Food Lab co-director. Agroecologically based territorial markets were able to contribute to building resilient food systems, he added.
Agroecology was about diverse livelihood systems, Drimie said. An economy of scale could be met with many smaller producers aggregating — if we were not obsessed with supplying vast volumes of a particular commodity. It was more about meeting people where they were than imposing a system that included fewer and fewer farmers, he said.
'We've got huge potential with what the possibilities are if we invested and enabled agroecology to exist, particularly around notions of circularity within these smaller territories,' said Drimie.
'There are a lot of synergies between agroecology and territorial markets. Territorial markets offer suitable market outlets for small-scale agroecological producers, which secures demand for diverse and sustainably produced foods,' Clapp told Daily Maverick. 'Linking agroecology and territorial markets works to rebalance uneven power dynamics in food systems by mutually supporting the livelihoods of agroecological producers and local food processors and traders.'
Import, exports
Agricultural exports from South Africa came to $13,7-billion in 2024, up 3% from the previous year due to an increase in volume and higher prices.
The top exported products in 2024 were citrus, grapes, maize, apples and pears, nuts, fruit juices, sugar, berries, dates, pineapples, avocados, apricots and peaches, and beef.
If South Africa is removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, more than R1-billion in export revenue of citrus could be lost, and about 35,000 jobs in the supply chain.
South Africa exported 44% to the region, including maize, maize meal, wheat, sugar, apples and pears, fruit juices, soybean oil, sunflower oil, oilcake and rice. Asia and the Middle East amounted to 21% of exports, the European Union was 19%, the Americas region 6% and the rest of the world, including the United Kingdom, was 10%.
South Africa imported $7,6-billion, up by 8% year-on-year. The increase came from higher value and volume of major products South Africa imports, like wheat, palm oil, rice, and poultry.
South Africa does not have the right climatic conditions to grow rice and palm oil, and imports nearly half of the annual consumption of wheat. The Free State used to be a major wheat-growing region of the country but production declined over time because of the unfavourable weather conditions and profitability challenges of wheat. Imports are around 20% of the annual domestic consumption of poultry.
With an increase of 2°C or more in average global temperatures, it will immediately affect crops such as wheat (which is not heat tolerant) in places like the Sahel or South Asia. Increasing temperatures and carbon levels increase the arsenic in rice, a study has found, explaining that exposure to inorganic arsenic can increase the risk of cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.
S taple crops, unstable world
In a dossier by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, Clapp said that food crises repeating over the past 50 years pointed to the systemic vulnerability of the global industrial food system, with three standout features:
Industrial food produced based on a narrow selection of staple crops.
An imbalance between a small number of exporting states and many import-dependent states.
High financialised and concentrated global agrifood markets.
Industrial farming relied on mechanisation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and a limited variety of genetically altered seeds. This, posited Clapp, createsd vulnerability in the system in many ways, encouraging farmers to focus on staple crops in large-scale uniform fields.
The narrow focus on staple crops had become so extreme that today just three cereal grains — wheat, maize, and rice — made up nearly half of human diets and accounted for 86% of all cereal exports, Clapp said. With the addition of soy, together these crops accounted for about two-thirds of human caloric intake. If any disruption happened to these crops, global food security was threatened.
A 2019 study from the University of Minnesota found crops like rice and wheat were declining due to the climate crisis, while sorghum, which was more drought-resistant, had an increased harvest.
Five countries made up at least 72% of wheat, maize, rice and soy crops production. Seven countries, plus the EU, accounted for about 90% of the world's wheat exports, while four countries accounted for more than 80% of the world's maize exports, Clapp wrote.
Import-dependence had intensified over the past 50 years, said Clapp. Although countries did produce staple grains, the majority did not produce enough to satisfy demand. They could not compete with highly industrialised agro-export countries, she wrote.
African countries focused on producing export goods like coffee, tea and cocoa, buying staples on the global market, due to the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the 80s and 90s, Clapp added.
Food as a commons to a commodity
Large investors reaped huge profits on the financialised future markets with the trade in grain, wrote Clapp. These markets were prone to extreme food price volatility; especially when investors flooded the markets when the food system was most at risk. Lately, there had also been a weakening of rules for financial investment in these markets.
Investors rushed into commodity markets just as prices rose, pushing grain prices up further, she explained in the dossier.
The ABCD companies — Archer Daniels, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus — controlled anywhere from 50 to 70% of the global grain trade, plus considerable parts of the food processing chain. They'd had record profits in recent years, as food prices had soared, she wrote.
'Territorial markets already feed as much as 70% of the world's population, but they are under threat from the constant march of corporate-controlled food supply chains,' said Clapp to Daily Maverick.
'In many countries current policy frameworks tend to prioritise corporate supply chains and industrial export-oriented agriculture via subsidies, infrastructure, and tax breaks. These kinds of policies need to change — and such a shift is especially relevant in this current global moment amid a global trade war,' said Clapp to Daily Maverick.
'It's important for governments to support territorial food systems through measures such as state purchasing schemes that privilege small-scale producers, directing subsidies to support infrastructure for local markets, and working to break up large-scale corporate monopolies in food systems that threaten the livelihoods of local food producers and traders. Governments can also do more to support the expansion of local agroecological food production to supply such markets,' she said.
This is where food sovereignty comes in — the movement asserts that food is a basic human right, not a commodity.
Conventional to conservation to agroecological: a continuum
Discussions around changing agrifood systems were polarising, Drimie said. In a transition there was a continuum of different kinds of agriculture; there was conventional agriculture with heavy chemical inputs, and then there was commercial farms moving towards conservation agriculture, which stopped overplowing and reduced fertiliser use. He cited the SmartAgri Plan, developed due to climate change threats facing the Western Cape. The objective was to ensure a low-carbon, climate-resilient agricultural sector in the Western Cape.
When Southern African Food Labs began to engage with farming communities across the country, it found that many farmers engaged in conservation agriculture, including forming 'clubs' in lieu of state support, to share information. Although still highly mechanised in a highly concentrated system, he said there was a change taking place.
'That's just to recognise that agroecology is… what you can get to if you fully transition in terms of this this way of farming, this way of of engaging the environment in order to farm that is deeply about the soil, about nature, about water, about people, about participation and inclusion,' said Drimie.
The Woza Nami ('come with me') project, in Inchanga, KwaZulu-Natal, focused on supporting 125 small-scale farmers including small co-operatives and backyard gardeners and local municipality officers based at the eThekweni Agroecology Unit to transition to agroecological farming. This was accompanied by a nutrition education programme and creating local community markets.
In terms of nutrition, the diet in most financially stressed households in Inchanga was high in starch, mainly pap, with little fruit and vegetables.
Wild crops like amadumbe are grown, which were part of traditional diets in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as maize, carrots, spinach, onions, pumpkins, green peppers and lettuce. The intention was to enable the Inchanga farmers to sell their produce at schools, community facilities, and via bakkie vendors and informal traders.
Drimie said they recognised that there were real limitations with seeds and seedlings, as it was very difficult to get open pollinated seeds, which was when pollination took place by natural mechanisms. Open-pollinated plants were more genetically diverse, causing greater variation within plant populations and adapting to local conditions and climate.
In northern KZN, with Biowatch support, local communities were using indigenous methodologies. While not focusing on creating markets, they were focusing on ways of planting, cultivation, custodianship, and farmers' cooperatives. This then led to them finding their own markets, he said.
Opportunities
'That's the beauty of this — within mixed livelihood systems, agroecology provides so much in terms of opportunities to work in different ways, and then to either operate in a market system at the neighborhood or community level, or to then look further afield,' said Drimie.
Southern Africa Food Lab travelled to an initiative called Thanda, in Umzumbe, KwaZulu-Natal. It's an area under traditional authority, surrounded by vast sugarcane fields. Some fields have gone through restitution, returned to people who were dispossessed through apartheid policies and laws. Currently, the fields are still linked to the sugar industry.
The area included many valleys that did not have sugarcane growing, he said. A small example of a territorial market was growing there, where people were farming in different ways with support from Thanda.
'An indicator of the impact that Thanda's agricultural programme has had on local food security is that 85% of the total vegetables grown over the past eight years has remained within the local community. That means it's not only the food circling in the area, it's also the value associated with that food — so the exchange of money.'
The farmers had a guaranteed market, as Thanda was taking the produce to early childhood development centres, primary schools, and high schools. Farmers also sold within neighbourhoods and on the side of the road.
' What they've been able to do is demonstrate the possibilities of a territorial market, and in that the agency of the individual farmers that are working together in co-ops… but having a set of options in terms of what they want to focus on in different markets.' DM