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Session
3.2.4: Food security and Indigenous perspectives
Time:
Friday, 14/June/2024:
10:30am - 12:00pm

Location: SH680 1365


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Presentations

taking care of the land for food security: The Indigenous Planning of Quechua People in Peru

Silvia Leonor Sarapura Escobar

University of Guelph, Canada

Andean Indigenous food systems depend on community land use planning to maintain the genetic pool of crops and landraces in the face of climate change. These systems are managed integrally and based on indigenous knowledge of soil conservation, water management and biodiversity conservation. Food system research, policy and programming exhibit a limited understanding of indigenous systems planning and community and cultural contexts. In policy and programming, the treatment of communities as homogenous groups overlooks heterogeneity in local identities. The purpose of this article is to respond to this gap by shedding light on the intersecting identities of Andean peasant women and men who contribute to the sustainability and resilience of their agri-food systems. Our focus is on intersecting identities and planning processes. This study draws on intersectional feminist thinking, socio-ecological systems and resilience thinking to apply an intersectional lens to the study of planning processes in several Andean communities. Findings identify contributions around soil conservation, biodiversity upkeep, water management, and communal or cultural practices that are shaped by peasants' intersecting identities and their interactions within social-ecological systems. Findings illustrate the importance of multiple social locations, relations, and structures of power, including but not limited to gender, but other categories such as age and ethnicity for the delivery of equitable resilience. We formulate some initial recommendations for national approaches and interventions to better reflect the diversity of Andean people's identities and the way these affect relationships with socio-ecological systems in national and public planning. In particular, we suggest the value of exploring further the potential of rights-based approaches for enhancing equitable resilience in Andean agri-food systems.



Social reproduction and agricultural productivity: the case of Malawi

A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi

Trent University, Canada

Malawi's rural economy is a gendered structure, with both farm work and carework being assigned to women and men along gender-segmented lines. This paper investigates the relationship between the work of social reproduction and the efficiency of gender-segmented farm production in Malawi. It starts by presenting quantitative estimates of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi, along with estimates of the proximate drivers of this gap, which demonstrate that men are more productive than women on the plots of land they operate even when accounting for differences in land quantity and quality. The paper then present the results of qualitative research into the causes of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi. It is demonstrated that the principal cause of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi is women's responsibility to provide the unpaid care and domestic work of social reproduction. This, along with women's responsibility to provide unpaid contributing farm labour on land that is operated by their husbands generates significant time poverty for women farmers in Malawi. These gender-segmented tasks are then reinforced in some homes by gender-based violence, which has strong economic consequences. It is argued that the unpaid work of social reproduction implicitly subsidizes the accumulation strategies of men operating plots of land for which they have principle responsibility, in that the patriarchal structures that result in gendered divisions of labour serve to assign responsibility for certain types of work to women, which in turn mobilizes women's labour for men's accumulation. Cumulatively, gender gaps in agricultural productivity in Malawi are a function of strongly gender-biased social norms and values that assign unpaid work, both for social reproduction and accumulation, to women.



Women’s challenges in indigenous knowledge food security in South Africa: The case of Alice in the Eastern Cape Province

Gabriel Acha Ekobi

University of Fort Hare, South Africa

Indigenous knowledge among women represents a valuable source of local solutions to food insecurity, most importantly, during food scarcities. However, there is a paucity of data on women’s challenges in indigenous knowledge food security in South Africa and Alice. The study aim is to explore women’s challenges in promoting indigenous knowledge food security in Alice. The study adopts a qualitative research approach and exploratory design to answer the objective. Twenty-five participants consisting of twenty-two women and three officials who work closely with the women will take part. Purposive sampling will be used to recruit participants and semi-structured interview guide will be employed to collect data from the participants. Data analysis is thematic and themes that will be identified are: indigenous knowledge know-hows and challenges faced by women. It is anticipated that challenges such as no land ownership, lack of finance, lack of proper training and insecurity plague women. Young people (women) are shying away from indigenous knowledge and food production because they see it as archaic. The study concludes that these challenges are contributing in increasing food insecurity and poverty incidence. Workshops and seminars could be organized to train and educate women in indigenous knowledge and food security as this might mitigate the challenges.



The political economy of agroecological transitions

Ben McKay1, Georgina Catacora-Vargas2, Ryan Nehring3

1University of Calgary, Canada; 2Professor of Agroecology, Academic Peasant Unit “Tiahuanacu” of the Bolivian Catholic University; 3Associate Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute

Agroecological transitions are fraught with challenges. Not only are there structural and institutional barriers or ‘lock-ins’ that uphold an unsustainable global food system, agroecological transitions require rethinking how we work with ecosystems and involve a shift in productive and reproductive relations in agriculture. By problematizing prevalent relations in conventional agro-commodity production, agroecology seeks to shift control over the labour process and value appropriation, while working to repair epistemic and metabolic rifts by prioritizing farmers’ knowledge and strengthening the co-production of human and non-human nature. But what are the factors that may facilitate or restrict agroecological transitions? Using a political economy approach, we put forth five key interrelated dimensions for analyzing agroecological transitions: (i) social metabolism; (ii) labour dynamics; (iii) markets and resources; (iv) social organizations; and (v) policies and politics. We argue that these key dimensions offer analytical and political utility for examining the political economy of agroecological transitions and can be used to both address gaps and complement existing frameworks.



 
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