ETD Collection

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Food security--Africa

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    African seed systems : the crises of food security and the rights of the farmer in Africa's globalising food regime
    (2017) Taylor, Anthea Wedgwood
    Through a close reading of the changes that have occurred within African agriculture using Food Regime Theory, this study will attempt to further understand the impact that has been felt by small-scale farmers who are a dominant feature of African agriculture. This paper will seek to understand the influence that the increased corporatization of agriculture through globalization has had on the small-scale farmer in Africa. As agriculture has become more and more corporatized and commodi:ied, it becomes important to consider the changes that have occurred for those actors within the industry and how these changes will impact them. This paper is attempting to do that through a close reading of the changes that have taken place within an integral part of the agricultural process: the seed.
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    A food sovereignty critique of the G8 New Alliance on food security and nutrition
    (2016-03-03) Crankshaw, Amy
    The G8 New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition (NAFN) is a new, under-researched and rapidly spreading partnership initiative. As the latest attempt to target hunger in Africa by developed countries, it deserves a certain level of scrutiny to decipher the intended development trajectory for African food systems and the possible implications for smallholder farmers, since these smallholders produce more than ninety percent of the continent’s food supply. Food sovereignty provides the ideal lens through which to analyse the New Alliance, being a political economy critique of agro-industrial food systems, as well as a constitutive approach to rights and the building of a grassroots movement and alternative. This research seeks to ascertain how the New Alliance may globalise African agriculture and undermine food sovereignty. An exploratory research design was used, first historicising African globalised agriculture, then decoding the main objectives of the New Alliance, and finally using the African Food Sovereignty Alliance as a case study to critique its translation into African countries’ commitments. The first few predictions of the hypothesis were strongly validated with findings that the New Alliance will result in large-scale investment of land, the commercialisation of the seed industry and an increased use of agro-chemicals and GMOs, increased foreign investment, and monopolisation of agribusiness by MNCs. To a lesser degree, the prediction that it would decrease barriers to trade and increase imports and exports was confirmed; however, there was little evidence that it intends to cut domestic support measures like some previous development programmes. The New Alliance is beyond reform, built on flawed neoliberal assumptions about development. This and further research could contribute to a movement to abolish the New Alliance before it induces negative long term effects, and to warn off other African countries contemplating this initiative.
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    People, poverty and the need for a rights based approach to land policy reform in Africa: a study of the importance of socially and environmentally focused land policy coordination in Africa to achieve the right to food, health and housing: the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Kingdom of Lesotho
    (2016-01-28) Lotter, Desyree
    The research looks at the coordination of land policy with population growth and biodiversity loss as a means through which economic, social and cultural rights may be achieved. The argument is made that poor coordination of land policy with social and environmental systems may perpetuate the circumstances that drive poverty in Africa. This given the fact that land policy is a public policy that may challenge the legitimacy of economic, social and cultural rights when not properly coordinated with social and environmental systems. The research questions what considerations are taken into account when determining land policy that reflects the economic, social and cultural needs of the people within a respective State. Given clearly identified dependencies on land for development by the majority of the African population, the research aims to address how land policy may be reformed in order to take on a multilateral perspective regarding coordination, as opposed to the current unilateral perspective that stays within the realm of land administration and commoditization of land. The hypothesis of the paper assumes that current land policies in Africa challenge the legitimacy of economic, social and cultural rights since coordinated with the systems of population growth and biodiversity loss as representatives of social and environmental sectors that most influence poverty are non-existent. The research focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Kingdom of Lesotho as comparative regions where; regardless of the differing characteristics of both regions, population growth and biodiversity loss prove to be common factors that influence society’s experience of poverty. The paper makes use of structural functionalism and conflict theory as a framework for analysis. Finally, the paper makes suggestions for further study into multilateral land policy reform as a contributing factor to the achievement of human rights. Key Words: Biodiversity Loss, Child Mortality, Corruption, DRC, Economic Social and Cultural Rights, Environmental Services, Food Security, Health, Housing, ICESCR, Land Policy, Land Tenure, Lesotho, Population Growth, World Bank