Land tenure security and its implications for investments to urban agriculture in Soweto, South Africa

Suchá, Lenka; Schlossárek, Martin; Dušková, Lenka; Malan, Naudé; Šarapatka, B.

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104739

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Formal property rights are also under pressure in South Africa (Minister of Public Works, 2020), suggesting an informal and indeterminable system of access to land is emerging. Suchá et al (2020), in a study of urban agriculture in Soweto, highlights that informal "perceived" tenure security is as effective, if not more effective, than formal tenure (2020:6) in stimulating investments on land. Farmers build fences in order to enhance tenure security: "Fencing represents physical protection against thefts which can also be considered as a tenure-building strategy, even in cases where farmers do not hold any land rights .…”

Section: Governance As "Infrastructuring"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Steering the Nexus: iZindaba Zokudla and Governing for Sustainability

Malan

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“iZindaba Zokudla” means we talk about the food that we eat. iZindaba Zokudla is a public innovation lab that uses stakeholder-engagement methods to create “opportunities for urban agriculture in a sustainable food system.” iZindaba Zokudla is presented as an extra-institutional means to govern the water, land, energy, and waste nexus. This reflective essay critically describes iZindaba Zokudla and applies this to the design of institutional steering mechanisms to govern the food, water, land, and energy nexus towards sustainability. Governance is an intersubjective and interactive process between the subjects of governance and governance itself. Sustainability, as an interactive process, implies the creation of autocatalytic and symbiotic communities in society that integrates diverse actors and stakeholders, inclusive of scientific and lay actors, and ecosystems. iZindaba Zokudla is a means to govern and create such communities, and this article describes and reflects on how iZindaba Zokudla has created and managed such symbiotic communities or autocatalytic networks in the food system. The article generalises how the activities conducted in iZindaba Zokudla can be used to govern the water, land, energy, and waste nexus for sustainability. The article shows how iZindaba Zokudla has realised a progressive governance through the facilitation of its Farmers' Lab and website; how it has created opportunities for participation; and how it enables critical reflection in society.

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Section: Governance As "Infrastructuring"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Steering the Nexus: iZindaba Zokudla and Governing for Sustainability

Malan

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…However, the capacity of urban community gardens fulfilling any of these benefits is significantly undermined by climate change-related factors, such as drought-inflicted water scarcity, floods associated with cyclones, and land issue constraints, such as limited land availability for urban agriculture and land tenure insecurity (Zulfiqar et al, 2022 ). Land access and land tenure security are vital factors that influence the viability and efficiency of urban agriculture activities (Suchá et al, 2020 ). Due to intense competition for urban land, gardeners not only struggle to access land but also struggle to obtain adequate land for cultivation (Magidimisha et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have shown that land access and land tenure security remains a problem for urban community gardeners especially in low-income and high-population density neighbourhoods across South Africa, for example, in Durban (Bisaga et al, 2019 ), Johannesburg (Malan, 2020 ) and Cape Town (Philander & Karriem, 2016 ). Urban community gardens in high-density areas are invariably located in various spaces such as public open vacant spaces, public school land, and institutional land.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Urban community gardens in high-density areas are invariably located in various spaces such as public open vacant spaces, public school land, and institutional land. However, minimal studies have adequately explored how urban gardeners access land and the implications of various forms of land tenure security on urban agriculture activities (Suchá et al, 2020 ). Instead, most studies focus on the dichotomy of informal and formal land tenure and neglect the other forms of land tenure security.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban community gardens in Cape Town, South Africa: navigating land access and land tenure security

Kanosvamhira

Tevera

2022

GeoJournal

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Land tenure security continues to pose a significant challenge to the sustainability of urban community gardens in global South cities. However, a few studies have explored the mechanisms that urban gardeners employ to facilitate land access and variations in land tenure security arrangements made with land owners in South African cities. This paper employs a mixed-methods research approach involving quantitative and qualitative techniques to examine how urban community gardens access land and land tenure security arrangements thereof. The study is based on questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and observations from 34 urban community food gardens in Cape Town selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods across selected low-income urban neighbourhoods. The findings reveal that although formalised land tenure security poses a sustainability threat to community gardens, perceived and de facto tenure present equally crucial forms of tenure which could be supported by state actors to promote urban agriculture. Reflecting on past efforts to formalise land tenure security, the article concludes that these efforts have failed due to poor coordination among government departments, and the complex and unclear processes of acquiring land. The paper recommends that while formalising land tenure arrangements may prove to be an effective solution, supporting institutions need to adopt a bottom-up approach to understand the gardener’s needs and build on perceived and de facto land tenure security options to promote the sustainability of community gardening projects.

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“…Research on urban gardens in southern Africa has mainly focused on urban agriculture around themes such as household food and nutrition security and income generation (Battersby, 2011; Battersby and Marshak, 2013; Crush et al, 2011; Hampwaye et al, 2007; Kanosvamhira and Tevera, 2020b). The literature also reveals the various challenges urban gardeners face such as limited access to land, land tenure insecurity, marketing constraints, in cities such as Maputo (D’Alessandro et al, 2018), Dar es Salaam (Schmidt et al, 2015), Cape Town (Paganini and Lemke, 2020) and Johannesburg (Suchá et al, 2020). As a result of such constraints, the capacity of urban agriculture to contribute to urban food security remains a challenge in many low-income areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Resilience and Urban Gardener Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Can We Learn from the Experience of the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa?

Kanosvamhira

Tevera

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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This paper draws on the results of a mixed-methods study that investigates whether urban gardener networks in a low-income neighbourhood in Cape Town are contributing to urban agriculture and food resilience. The findings reveal that the urban gardeners are organised into largely fragmented informal networks whose primary goal is to enhance food resilience. While these networks have succeeded in disseminating information, they have not been able to empower urban gardeners in low-income neighbourhoods to access resources beyond non-governmental organisation assistance. Also, the home gardeners have not succeeded to reorganise, both in terms of form and function, in order to overcome the underlying stress factors, such as poverty, that continue to weaken home gardens in the Cape Flats area. We argue that engagement with urban gardener networks can be a useful way of framing the debate on food resilience in low-income areas of African cities.

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Land tenure security and its implications for investments to urban agriculture in Soweto, South Africa

Cited by 19 publications

References 15 publications

Steering the Nexus: iZindaba Zokudla and Governing for Sustainability

Steering the Nexus: iZindaba Zokudla and Governing for Sustainability

Urban community gardens in Cape Town, South Africa: navigating land access and land tenure security

Food Resilience and Urban Gardener Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Can We Learn from the Experience of the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa?

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