An R1.5m injection from the WesBank Fund has enabled a new project aimed at reducing hunger and poverty, increasing agricultural development, addressing malnutrition and contributing towards skills development, to get off the ground.

The project in SU's Faculty of AgriSciences, known as "FARMNET" (Farmer market networks – creating sustainable viable livelihoods), will work with farmers who are currently seeking to transform from subsistence to engaging with the market. It will promote knowledge production and human capital development in food security in South Africa.

The initiative kicked off in October 2015, and is set to run for three years and will include the Eastern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Western Cape provinces working in collaboration with regional institutions.

"FARMNET will engage with the current food system to better understand where potential for transformative processes lie. Thus, FARMNET initially requires a systematic review of polices, practices and results of previous systems to be completed in order to feed into the think tank and the process of design. 

"The process will engage with small scale, existing farmer networks as well as government agricultural extension officers and the food security task team for various provinces," explains Ms Julia Harper, Food Security Initiative Manager at SU.

Harper and her colleagues who will be working on this project welcomed the R1.5m, saying it will enable stakeholders to convene, which is essential in enabling the goals and deliverables to be realised.

FARMNET will be working closely with another SU project known as the Southern African Food Lab, which specialises in convening diverse groups in the food system to identify and foster opportunities for transformation.

And what impact would this research have on the bigger agriculture picture? According to Harper, the food system is a concept which has been embraced by the National Development Plan (NDP). It is a cross-disciplinary construct, capturing and re-evaluating traditional and cutting-edge wisdom from the silos of food production, storage, processing, transportation, retail, nutrition and health.

"The NDP requires evidence-based models to safeguard the ecological, economic and social resilience of the food system. Focusing on the agriculture (including water and energy)-food-nutrition nexus, the FARMNET concept and models will result from innovative research considering existing and alternative food systems. Combined with improved political and economic governance, these FARMNET models will increase access to safe, healthy and nutritious food for the entire population," she added.

The NDP's 2030 vision anticipates that a third of all fresh produce consumed in South Africa will be produced by small-scale farmers. According to Mrs Kele Mazwai, chairperson of the WesBank Fund, they are committed to providing longer-term support to help empower and connect community food producers in pursuit of sustainable livelihood opportunities. "Such livelihoods can only be realised through equitable market access. The Foundation is of the view that such access may well be predicated on enhancements being made to our current national food system."

• For more information on this project contact Julia Harper [email protected].