Arts, culture and food security in Southern Africa

Abstract

International and regional studies have highlighted the integral relationship between culture and sustainable development. This can be extended into the relationship of arts and culture and food security. Clarity about this relationship is constrained by a number of problems dealing with concepts, policies, structure, capacity and information. As all livelihoods issues, the relationship is complex and crises usually entangled. Conceptually food security deals with sustainable access to food, utilisation of food, poverty alleviation and the use of arts and craft for income generation. Two meanings of culture apply: ways of living and practice of arts and craft. Culture in both senses impact on food security, e.g. preferences for exogenous crops, lack of markets for indigenous crops, inflation's impact on reverting to traditional, cheaper technology, youth's dissociation with traditional food production, land tenure systems and artistic styles. Food security impacts on culture through exposure of migrant labourers to new cultures and the destroying of family assets for mitigation of decrease in income. Although national governments increasingly develop policies, these are generally not aligned to regional needs. National and regional structures are underdeveloped for joined action, and markets remain inaccessible to many local producers. Capacity of producers has eroded over the years due to decline in high-income industrial employment and HIV and AIDS. This sad situation is aggravated by the scarcity of reliable information on production and markets. An approach to a better understanding of the situation is proposed, which focuses on collation of existing information, the production of reports and country studies, with a focus on creating linkages and integrated frameworks for implementation.