Challenging the Globalized Agro‐food Complex: Farming Cooperatives and the Emerging Solidarity Economy Alternative in South Africa

Abstract

In the global South, 850 million people remain food insecure, that is, unable to meet daily food requirements. Meanwhile global food value chains are increasingly controlled by a few transnational corporations. The food production and consumption pattern engendered by the globalized agro‐food complex is worsening food insecurity and ultimately increasing hunger among millions of people. Post‐apartheid South Africa has not escaped this pattern of development. Actually, the neoliberalization of the post‐apartheid political economy has deepened the externalization of South African agriculture from an internationalized agro‐food complex to a globalized model, exacerbating food insecurity. This essay highlights how the apartheid era agro‐food complex was restructured and globalized. It points to the neoliberal reforms that have shaped the pattern of development of the agro‐food complex, which historically was mainly structured around “white controlled cooperatives,” but has been locked into the search for “competitive advantage” as opposed to meeting people's needs.

From the RDP to the NDP: A Critical Appraisal of the Developmental State, Land Reform, and Rural Development in South Africa

“…The promulgation of the Marketing and Agricultural Products Act in 1996 resulted in the dismantling of agricultural marketing boards and the withdrawal of the state's role in the agriculture sector. Moreover, subsidies as well as tariffs on agricultural imports were removed, and state services to the agricultural sector were either withdrawn or reduced (Weideman 2004;Machethe 2008;Satgar 2011;O'Laughlin et al 2013, 9) -all of which have left the South African agricultural sector with one of the lowest levels of state protection in the world (James 2007). These radical policy changes have adversely impacted new land reform beneficiaries who are denied the generous subsidies, infrastructure, marketing, and agricultural extension support provided to white farmers under apartheid (Lahiff and Cousins 2005).…”

An Attribute-Based Approach to Classifying Community-Based Tourism Networks

“…The social economy is people-centred and aims to strengthen social cohesion, promote civic participation and provide employment and financial opportunities for the most disadvantaged within the labour market and for the public sector, thus challenging the prevailing neoliberal approach to industrial relations (Lukkarinen, 2005; Vidal, 2010). A more radical approach to the social economy advocates broader social change for the oppressed (Azzellini, 2009; Lechat, 2009;Satgar, 2011).…”

The Challenges of Lack of Sustainability of Cooperatives. A Perspective of Selected Art and Craft Cooperatives of Muyexe Village in Greater Giyani Municipality of Limpopo Province in South Africa

“…The amendment of the Cooperative Act followed in 1993. Most of the white owned co-operatives changed their status to public companies (Philip 2003:17, DTI 2010, Satgar 2011Bernstein 2013). In 1994, the democratic government was elected and the imbalances which emanated during the apartheid government of supporting white cooperatives with the exclusion of support to black cooperatives were realized.…”

“…47 unleashed a process of liberalisation and deregulation. Through this Act, producer controlled agriculture marketing boards were all dismantled (Satgar 2011). (Satgar 2007:4;Jara and Satgar 2009:6).…”