It’s been quite a while since we last posted, so we thought it would be a good idea to give you an understanding of where we are as an organisation and where we are in terms of a fairer, more equitable food system in South Africa. If Part 1 of this two-part series, we talk about the organisation.
FEED has spent the last year laying the groundwork for what we believe can make a telling impact in the food system.
Food System Vision Prize
We entered the Food System Vision Prize in 2019, this really helped us formulate and bring together our different bodies of work to create FEED. Reaching the penultimate round of the Prize was a fantastic honour, and the opportunity to look at and stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the most exciting projects in the global food system really inspired us.
Inqola FEED Innovation Prize
Our previous post was on the winners of the inaugural Inqola FEED Innovation Prize, which was created to highlight ideas and solutions that have the potential to create meaningful impact in the food system in South Africa. After receiving some eye-opening entries, our judges selected Foodprint (https://www.foodprintapp.com) as the first prize winners. They have since launched their low data WhatsApp app aimed at smallholder farmers.
Jozi Luhlaza
We had the pleasure and privilege to engage with the City of Johannesburg around matters pertaining to urban farming. This resulted in the creation of a forum where departments could come together to discuss matters around the topic.
Larger Team
While we’re not overtly interested in formalities (preferring to get down to business as such), we would like to take this opportunity to formally introduce you to our expanded leadership team, with Siyabonga Ndlangamandla and Andile Mnguni joining during the course of the last year.
Siyabonga Ndlangamandla is our agri-specialist with a strong passion for food security and community development, particularly youth-led community development. Siya holds several qualifications across Science, Technology, Development Studies and agriculture (specifically hydroponics). He is also a farmer, with several of his own inner city and peri-urban farming projects. Among other roles, Siya also sits on the board of the Makers Valley Partnership, which focuses on changemaking and incorporates social and creative entrepreneurship, in the greater Troyeville/Bertrams/Bezuidenhout Valley and Lorentzville areas of Johannesburg.
Andile Mnguni handles our digital communications and programme coordination, two critical areas for us in shifting the food system. Andile is a social entrepreneur and founded ROAR SA when she was 18 years old, helping young people find their voices and equipping them with the tools needed to create meaningful change in their communities. She has won several awards for her work and has been named a 2021/2002 Thought For Food Ambassador (TFF is a global organisation with a mission to create more resilient and inclusive food systems). She has also graduated with distinction from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, Social Entrepreneurship Programme and is the youngest individual to do so.
Programmes
As FEED’s work moves into the programme realm, there are several strategic areas that are emerging as significant and with high potential for food system impact.
Youth In Food Systems (YIAF)
Youth In Food Systems (YIAF) is an important aspect of our theory of change, based on the focus of both academics and practitioners: the role of youth in food systems is being critically examined and platformed. We believe that well-constructed youth programmes that lead to socially conscious food-based enterprises and other forms of social engagement will be a cornerstone of change in the country. This area incorporates our belief that a bottom-up, community-orientated approach, driven by youth leaders, will be a driving factor in creating a more equitable and sustainable food system. Our FEED values of collaboration and cooperativism infuse YIAF programming.
Collaboration for us means, as opposed to reinventing the wheel, rather considering that other stakeholders have expertise and value that can be drawn upon and maximised through active partnerships and other forms of participatory action. It also means learning from others’ mistakes and gaining insights from experiences of others who have walked the path before.
Cooperativism recognises that no one alone can fully transform our current, problematic food system . The challenges might be deep and many, but we can draw strength from each other and work together to build economies of scale and to effect real impact. In a practical sense, we are encouraging youth to look at meaningful and sustainable ways of cooperating, for example buying inputs as a group or negotiating contracts as a collective.
We are currently in the research and development stage of the programme.
Map the System
At the very core of our work, FEED exists to address systemic issues in the food space. We enthusiastically participated in the 2022 Map The System competition, which is a global challenge hosted by the Saïd Business School and Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship (Oxford University), with the Bertha Centre at the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s Graduate School of Business. The competition enables entrants to utilise systems thinking to address current social, economic, and environmental challenges. FEED’s work thus far on identifying food system stakeholders in South Africa, and our partner Oribi’s work in the food social entrepreneurship space made for a strategic partnership: our team focused on the topic of enabling youth food system equity as this tied in with our YIAF programme and research priorities.
Our team successfully reached the regional finals and has committed to building capacity for ongoing food ecosystem mapping efforts. .
FEED Fridays
FEED Fridays began in response to a need for actors working on critical food system interventions to have a safe space to build community, express highs and lows, and to imagine intersectional approaches to collaboration. We invite people to share experiences around food and the food system, creating an opportunity for active engagement and discussion in a relaxed setting. Usually held once a month at different venues in Johannesburg (for example, with our collaborators the Makers Valley Partnership), each event has a loose theme to guide discussion.. Our intention is to expand FEED Fridays to other cities and spaces and we are actively looking for partners..