The Joburg Market is the largest fresh produce market in Africa and it is completely owned by the city of Johannesburg municipality(Joburg Market). It is one of the city’s entities that are not collapsing and are able to compete and trade on an international level which is a great success for a state owned entity. Its history goes back into 19th century and it has since grown with the expansion of the city (demand for more produce) and this has to its relocations until its present home in the city deep as it needed more space for the large volumes that were produced.

The Joburg market provides a safe space and opportunity for the south african farmers to bring their produce to the markets and it does this through the use of key agencies which their sole purpose is to sell the produce on behalf of the farmers. There are currently more than 5000 farmers that are working with the joburg markets and come as far Limpopo and as local as from urban farmers.

The farmers get to view the key agencies’ profiles and choose the one that suits their produce (this gives the farmer the freedom to decide what happens to his/her produce) and this allows the farmers to focus on production and not have to worry about the marketing of the produce. The key agencies sell the produce to supermarkets, retailers, restaurants, informal traders and even individual persons and this is done at the price that is set by the farmers (not that of the supermarkets).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The opening of the markets to the different stakeholders in itself can be viewed as a food security address. we already have the nutritious food component of food security through the farmers, the market safety policy is that the produce must be  handled and treated under hygienic, safe and traceable conditions throughout the supply chain and the agencies tries to bridge the accessibility through distribution component. The economic accessibility is deeply rooted in the farmer setting the price instead of corporate and also the establishment of the mandela’s people market that allows people without forms of identification to become part of the system.

 

The success of this market has gone beyond the borders of the country as it extend its services to consumers from neighbouring countries. It perhaps most importantly act as a site of study and motivation for governments and food markets within and across the continent of Africa when it comes to its size, value, survival and operation.

 

The limitation of this market that separates it from the food justice movement is its inability of ensuring safety and justice from the production stage until the consumption stage. The system speaks of fair trade but how much of it is fair if the farm workers of the farm from which this healthy produce we enjoy are being exploited and are paid low wages? It is in this regard that the creation of such markets, good as they are but will not on their own be able to address food security and definitely not food justice as it still alienate the most vulnerable component (immigrant labour) of the food system.

Hydroponics is a modern system (non-traditional environment) which allows plants to grow in anthropogenically designed media and particularly in the absence of soil. This system involves the supply of nutrients to plants, which they would normally get from the soil, through the irrigation water at regular basis. In simple terms, plants grow in water (HYDROPONICS) and their roots are exposed in order to absorb this water and nutrients.

Hydroponic systems have been explored as a solution to food security as well as an idea of greening the city. A primary example of this is the Hola Harvest which is supported by WIBC Open Innovation (WIBC). They particularly produce leafy greens (spinach, spices and lettuce), basil and strawberries. They plant these in A-frames systems and table systems.

The hydroponics agricultural approach as part of the urban agriculture component, is effective in producing much higher yield, especially in this climax of climate change. Hydroponics provide a much stable, ideal environment for successful and effective plant growth. But the question arises; to what extent is it a solution to addressing the food security crisis we see globally today?.

One of the disadvantages of hydroponics, as mentioned by the Agricultural Research Council website (ARC), is that it requires a lot of capital, intensive management as well as hard labour. Small scale farmers lack capital, which puts them in a position that will inhibit them from having access to hydroponics equipment. Even subsistence farmers in the rural areas will not be able to purchase this system as it is expensive, and this will mean that they will not have food as the climate continues to worsen.

This food security solution does not accommodate those experiencing food insecurity. The foods produced are sold to restaurants at a supermarket level of pricing, which brings about the idea that this form of urban agriculture is not accommodating to the low income individuals who don’t afford supermarket products. The foods can not be found on the informal sector division of the economy, which tries to accommodate the low income households. Is a solution to food security that actually speaks to the food insecure possible?

CAMBRIDGE FOOD SUPERMARKET De Villiers Street

ADDRESS: 42 De Villiers St, Johannesburg, 2001

Cambridge Sign

The supermarket carefully picked as a site of study was established in the 1990s with only six stores selling fresh meat in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Today they are a chain of way more than thirty outlets or franchises operating in eight provinces around South Africa. Cambridge Food has spent years building their fresh face business on a foundation of unbeatable value for the savings-focused customers.

The demonstrations seeks to illustrate the demographics of a supermarket in downtown Johannesburg. The careful analysis on the site tries to link the social happenings in this store and try to relate it to other stores elsewhere. It brings forth the socio-economic factors of shopping and also brings the element of the informal sector into play.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The results and observations drawn from the careful analysis of this supermarket has clearly shown how they have kept to their vision and promise made to the public which is to provide the lowest prices for their goods. It has lower prices so as to allow the lower income households to save enough money to pay other bills, thus improve their standard of living. As observed from the above demonstrations, the outlet visited caters mostly for the black population who are in the low income financial category. The prices provided by this supermarket are much more affordable for them as compared to the other supermarkets. The general plan of the shop is quite simple and easy to follow as it flows from the entrance to the exit.

The aisles are represented according to which products are found on the shelves. All the shelve tops in the store are used as storage spaces as there are bulk products which are stored in boxes and plastics so as to keep them to replace the ones on the shelves when they are finished. This form of storage observed clearly insinuates that the storage room present in the store is very small to accomodate all the unopened goods. Unlike the other stores nationwide, the entrance and exit is on the same side and next to each other just divided by the small rail inbetween.

The store sells a range of high-quality national brands, plus goods that they source and pack themselves under their own brand label, across all major categories, as this is seen in the store plan. They promote their own brand goods by placing them on the front of every shelve opposite the tills so that the customers can pick them first. In every aisle, there are strips of snacks and sweets hanging between the shelve dividers as they try and capture the kids attention. These are at the kids eye level. Each and every aisle has its own specific smell depending on what it sells, in the basics and spices isle one can smell the aroma of the spices which will influence the customer to buy the spices. With regards to the breakfast aisle, the order in which the products are packed clearly shows that they have a marketing strategy. From the back, the aisle begins with hot beverage products, then cookies or biscuits, then the cereals. In that manner they make the customer understand that they need the biscuits to go with the hot beverage products, thus they buy both without the initial intention to do so.

The wits food garden was established by the the wits citizenship and community outreach(WCCO) together with Co-operative and Policy Alternative  Center(COPAC), and Wits Inala Forum which the student forum with the intention of helping to sustain student life and alleviating hunger within the wits community space.This garden is planted and maintained by the students for the benefit of the students, and they plant vegetables ranging from spinach, onions, cabbages and many others that go towards providing a nutritional diet.

When the concept of creating gardens in the urban space in order to address the food crisis is discussed in its wider context, it is found that there is little evidence that link urban agriculture directly to food security due to space , time and socioeconomic issues as discussed in the “Why urban agriculture isn’t a panacea for food crisis” Conversation piece . Though the argument that there is no linear relationship between urban agriculture and food security has its own merits, it becomes crucial to understand why the gardens are formed in the first place, not all is food security or nothing.

Just like the case in Khayelitsha, where the community took it upon themselves to utilize an illegal dumping space and created a vegetable patch to promote community’s self reliance while reducing their dependence on supermarkets (Case Study). The Wits food  garden also seeks to decomodify food and make the space conducive to building social ties and the cultural interactions through food. It does this as to take control of the food system back through the support of local and small scale farmers, bottom up approach and the production of their own food.

There is a worrying concern that the sovereignty from the state help or even intervention can be viewed as giving the state a ”get out of jail free card”. this gives the government the impression that the issue is being dealt with and therefore does not require its intervention.The programme also does not fully take in cognisense the stigmatization and humiliation that is associated with charity (this is how it is viewed by people who benefit from this).

The existing food system that we have presently at Wits is a way of redefining our ideological thinking of food as it draws charity as an alternative to addressing issues of food security. Though it is currently done in a smaller scale, it still remain a powerful tool which can be reproduced to other elsewheres and us as the Wits community will act as agents for creating just transition in our food regime.

 

Thanks for joining us on our food journey!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton