Nobody wants to be trapped in a menial, minimum-wage job. Yet in commercial and subsistence agriculture alike, these are the vast majority of jobs that the sector offers young South Africans. Relative to other sectors, agriculture is not a big contributor to gross domestic product (GDP)...
On 25 July, WWF South Africa will host the Living Planet Conference 2019 at which Food Lab Director, Dr Scott Drimie, and Food Lab Chair, Tatjana von Bormann, will both be speaking. This year's conference will focus on the South African food system and will explore...
Last week WWF South Africa took the learning of the Food Lab to the “world’s largest gathering of multi-stakeholder dialogues” (so defined by Chairman of the EAT Advisory Board, Johan Rockström). With over a thousand delegates from 80 countries, Eat Forum in Stockholm was an historic moment...
by Jenny Willis I have been hoping to see chikanda since I came across an early paper about its valorisation in 2015. Thank you to Chimwemwe Tembo-Phiri, an agrarian scientist at Stellenbosch, for bringing some back from Zambia and sharing your first-hand experience of the role and...
Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems In early 2019 the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health launched a report written by 37 world-leading scientists, which represents the most comprehensive effort to date to make explicit the links between diets...
Over the past three years, the Food Lab, in partnership with the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition, GRAID and the NRF, has made use of Transformation Labs (or T-Labs) as a means of exploring ways to transform the Cape Metropolitan food system into one which...
In early May, chefs, farmers, fisher people, academics and conservationists gathered at Food Jams in Salt River for a T-Lab with the aim of strengthening an emerging coalition of coastal food actors from across the system by stimulating new connections and identifying practical steps to...
By Tatjana von Bormann Last week, WWF and the Southern Africa Food Lab hosted a multi-stakeholder dialogue aimed at pushing for change in the critical nutrition conversation. The Food Lab private sector dialogue was a long time in the making. It probably started a few years back...
Dietary transition poses a severe threat Malnutrition including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity is severely impeding Africa’s development trajectory. In South Africa, access to adequate nutrition is a constitutional right and yet hunger is rife and food access is a daily struggle with...
We need a fundamental overhaul of our food system which, in its current form, is a threat to the environment and human health. This is the key message contained in a new WWF South Africa report titled “Agri-Food Systems: Facts and Futures”. The report, which looks...
By Anna Shevel As consumers, we have the opportunity to save our own lives and to conserve our planet from our forks. Our food choices have the greatest potential impact out of any daily action that we can take. By just making food choices empowered with...
In January, WWF and the Food Lab hosted thought leaders from the finance sector, insurance and investment on a learning journey regarding the nation’s future food system. “The purpose of the day was to give the private sector insight into some of the big changes...
Loubie Rusch grew up chomping on plants characteristic of the Cape Floristic Region. Rich, nutritious, but largely forgotten, Rusch believes that local indigenous plant ingredients may hold the key to restoring damaged landscapes, improving poor nutrition and improving resilience to climate change. Virtually absent from the...
by Ryan Meiring Allan Savory’s theories and beliefs developed and evolved over a lifetime in the field were met, for many years, with resistance. It wasn’t until his TED talk went viral that the scientific community really started to take notice and that his principles for...
As part of recent research conducted by Incite on behalf of the Southern Africa Food Lab and WWF South Africa, a comprehensive global review of health-related collaborative platforms and types of action involving industry participation was undertaken. The review found that industry players across the food, beverage...
“Public-private collaboration is essential if we hope to effectively address the negative outcomes of our food systems, starting with the nutritional siege our children are under,” says Tatjana von Bormann, Senior Manager of WWF South Africa’s Policy and Futures Unit. This is the key message of...
As the old saying goes, ‘If life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. The story of Umgibe is the inspirational triumph-against-all-odds tale of a woman who decided not only to make organic lemonade (metaphorically speaking), but to teach more than 600 others to do the same....
Food is a big part of who we are as humans. One study shows that the average American will spend more than 32 000 hours of their life eating and drinking. Gulp! At school, we learn about food as a means of sustenance and health. As...
It is estimated that a staggering one in five South African households is food insecure with more than 13 million South Africans routinely experiencing hunger. This, in contravention of our Constitution, which enshrines access to food as a right. In light of this and of our...
Removing VAT off peanut butter, an excellent source of protein and fats on children’s sandwiches, is not going to send our economy into the ashes. Neither is subsidising eggs, Maas, brown bread and maize meal. Nor is paying workers and pensioners a living wage. Nor...