Addressing food and nutrition security in South Africa: A review of policy responses since 2002

Since 2002, a range of South African policies have attempted to address the disproportionate burden of food and nutrition insecurity on the population. Yet malnutrition among the poor has worsened. This study reviewed policies to examine their implications for food security and the treatment of malnutrition. Policies enacted between 2002 and 2017 were retrieved from government departments and the data were thematically analysed. A preliminary analysis shows that policy has aided production through input provision and capacity building. Taxation, school nutrition programmes and social grants are some of the food access initiatives, whilst micronutrient supplementation, breastfeeding campaigns and food fortification are policies specifically focused on nutrition. However, despite these interventions, food insecurity has remained due to gaps in and contradictions among policies and the lack of coordination in policy development and implementation, especially across sectors. To improve food and nutrition security, government must better engage with ideas about how to address food and nutrition security systemically, and develop the appropriate coordination mechanisms for a more holistic approach to this challenge

Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6

Background <br/> The archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and Holocene. <br/> Results Improved resolution of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup U6 phylogeny, by the screening of 39 new complete sequences, has enabled us to infer a signal of moderate population expansion using Bayesian coalescent methods. To ascertain the time for this expansion, we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection and one with an internal calibration based on four approximate archaeological dates: the settlement of the Canary Islands, the settlement of Sardinia and its internal population re-expansion, and the split between haplogroups U5 and U6 around the time of the first modern human settlement of the Near East. <br/> Conclusions <br/> A Bayesian skyline plot placed the main expansion in the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, around 20 ka, and spatial smoothing techniques suggested that the most probable geographic region for this demographic event was to the west of North Africa. A comparison with U6's European sister clade, U5, revealed a stronger population expansion at around this time in Europe. Also in contrast with U5, a weak signal of a recent population expansion in the last 5,000 years was observed in North Africa, pointing to a moderate impact of the late Neolithic on the local population size of the southern Mediterranean coast

Importance of DTM accuracy, precision and acquisition technique for estimating contributing areas of post-fire erosion at the slope and catchment scale

Wildfires are a frequent phenomenon in Portugal, affecting over 300.000 ha in dry years like 2003 and 2005. Directly and/or indirectly, wildfires can strongly enhance the hydrological response and associated sediment losses and, thereby, negatively affect land-use sustainability as well as ecosystem functioning of downstream aquatic habitats. Therefore, the EROSFIRE projects aim at developing a GIS-tool for predicting soil erosion hazard following wildfire and post-fire land management practices. Assessment and modeling of runoff and soil erosion rates critically depends on accurate estimates of the contributing areas. In the case of catchments as well as unbounded erosion plots (arguably, the only practical solution for slope-scale measurements), delineation of contributing area requires a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) with an adequate resolution and accuracy. The DTM that was available for the Colmeal study area (Goís municipality, central Portugal) was that of the 1:25.000 topographic map produced by the Military Geographic Institute. Since this study area involves a rather small experimental catchment of roughly 10 ha and relatively short study slopes of less than 100 m long, two different data acquisition techniques were used to produce high-resolution and high-accuracy DTM. One is aerial photogrammetry, whilst the other is terrestrial laser scanning. To produce a DTM by photogrammetric means, a dedicated digital aerial photography mission was carried out. The images had a pixel size of 10 cm. Manual measurements permitted to measure breaklines and were complemented by automatic measurements. In this way, a DTM in a TIN format was produced. This was further converted to grid format using the ArcGIS software system. Signalized control points allowed obtaining the DTM in the same global reference system as that employed for terrestrial laser scanning. The terrestrial laser scanning was done using a Riegl LMS Z360I, stationed in 8 points within the area to provide a complete coverage. The resulting dense cloud of points was filtered – by the company carrying out the scanning mission - to remove the non-terrain points (in particular vegetation). Several grids of different sizes were produced (0.10 x 0.10, 0.20 x 0.20, 0.50 x 0.50, 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 m2). The proposed work will compare and analyze estimates of contribution areas that were obtained with the two above-mentioned data acquisition techniques and for different spatial resolutions. This will be done for selected slope-scale sediment fences as well as for the outlet of the experimental catchment. In addition, different algorithms available in ArcGIS for TIN-to-grid conversion will be compared, since preliminary results have suggested that these procedures produce markedly different results

Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers

One of the greatest challenges humanity faces is feeding the world's human population in a sustainable, nutritious, equitable and ethical way under a changing climate. Urgent transformations are needed that allow farmers to adapt and develop while also being climate resilient and contributing minimal emissions. This paper identifies several illustrative adaptation and development pathways, recognising the variety of starting points of different types of farmers and the ways their activities intersect with global trends, such as population growth, climate change, rapid urbanisation dietary changes, competing land uses and the emergence of new technologies. The feasibility of some pathways depends on factors such as farm size and land consolidation. For other pathways, particular infrastructure, technology, access to credit and market access or collective action are required. The most viable pathway for some farmers may be to exit agriculture altogether, which itself requires careful management and planning. While technology offers hope and opportunity, as a disruptor, it also risks maladaptations and can create tradeoffs and exacerbate inequalities, especially in the context of an uncertain future. For both the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2015 Paris Agreement to be achieved, a mix of levers that combine policy, technology, education and awareness-raising, dietary shifts and financial/economic mechanisms is required, attending to multiple time dimensions, to assist farmers along different pathways. Vulnerable groups such as women and the youth must not be left behind. Overall, strong good governance is needed at multiple levels, combining top-down and bottom-up processes

Mainstreaming Underutilized Indigenous and Traditional Crops into Food Systems: A South African Perspective

Business as usual or transformative change? While the global agro-industrial food system is credited with increasing food production, availability and accessibility, it is also credited with giving birth to ‘new’ challenges such as malnutrition, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. We reviewed the potential of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops to bring about a transformative change to South Africa’s food system. South Africa has a dichotomous food system, characterized by a distinct, dominant agro-industrial, and, alternative, informal food system. This dichotomous food system has inadvertently undermined the development of smallholder producers. While the dominant agro-industrial food system has led to improvements in food supply, it has also resulted in significant trade-offs with agro-biodiversity, dietary diversity, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic stability, especially amongst the rural poor. This challenges South Africa’s ability to deliver on sustainable and healthy food systems under environmental change. The review proposes a transdisciplinary approach to mainstreaming underutilized indigenous and traditional crops into the food system, which offers real opportunities for developing a sustainable and healthy food system, while, at the same time, achieving societal goals such as employment creation, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability. This process can be initiated by researchers translating existing evidence for informing policy-makers. Similarly, policy-makers need to acknowledge the divergence in the existing policies, and bring about policy convergence in pursuit of a food system which includes smallholder famers, and where underutilized indigenous and traditional crops are mainstreamed into the South African food system

Designing transformative spaces for sustainability in social-ecological systems

Transformations toward sustainability have recently gained traction, triggered in part by a growing recognition of the dramatic socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological changes required to move societies toward more desirable futures in the Anthropocene. However, there is a dearth of literature that emphasizes the crucial aspects of sustainability transformations in the diverse contexts of the Global South. Contributors to this Special Feature aim to address this gap by weaving together a series of case studies that together form an important navigational tool on the “how to” as well as the “what” and the “where to” of sustainability transformations across diverse challenges, sectors, and geographies. They propose the term “transformative space” as a “safe-enough” collaborative process whereby actors invested in sustainability transformations can experiment with new mental models, ideas, and practices that can help shift social-ecological systems onto more desirable pathways. The authors also highlight the challenges posed to researchers as they become “transformative space-makers,” navigating the power dynamics inherent in these processes. Because researchers and practitioners alike are challenged to provide answers to complex and often ambiguous or incomplete questions around sustainability, the ideas, reflections and learning gathered in this Special Feature provide some guidance on new ways of engaging with the world

A Review of Indigenous Food Crops in Africa and the Implications for more Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems

Indigenous and traditional foods crops (ITFCs) have multiple uses within society, and most notably have an important role to play in the attempt to diversify the food in order to enhance food and nutrition security. However, research suggests that the benefits and value of indigenous foods within the South African and the African context have not been fully understood and synthesized. Their potential value to the African food system could be enhanced if their benefits were explored more comprehensively. This synthesis presents a literature review relating to underutilized indigenous crop species and foods in Africa. It organizes the findings into four main contributions, nutritional, environmental, economic, and social-cultural, in line with key themes of a sustainable food system framework. It also goes on to unpack the benefits and challenges associated with ITFCs under these themes. A major obstacle is that people are not valuing indigenous foods and the potential benefit that can be derived from using them is thus neglected. Furthermore, knowledge is being lost from one generation to the next, with potentially dire implications for long-term sustainable food security. The results show the need to recognize and enable indigenous foods as a key resource in ensuring healthy food systems in the African continent

Runoff at the micro-plot and slope scale following wildfire, central Portugal

Through their effects on soil properties and vegetation/litter cover, wildfires can strongly enhance overland flow generation and accelerate soil erosion [1] and, thereby, negatively affect land-use sustainability as well as downstream aquatic and flood zones. Wildfires are a common phenomenon in present-day Portugal, devastating in an average year some 100.000 ha of forest and woodlands and in an exceptional year like 2003 over 400.000 ha. There therefore exists a clear need in Portugal for a tool that can provide guidance to post-fire land management by predicting soil erosion risk, on the one hand, and, on the other, the mitigation effectiveness of soil conservation measures. Such a tool has recently been developed for the Western U.S.A. [3: ERMiT] but its suitability for Portuguese forests will need to be corroborated by field observations. Testing the suitability of existing erosion models in recently burned forest areas in Portugal is, in a nutshell, the aim of the EROSFIRE projects. In the first EROSFIRE project the emphasis was on the prediction of erosion at the scale of individual hill slopes. In the ongoing EROSFIRE-II project the spatial scope is extended to include the catchment scale, so that also the connectivity between hill slopes as well as channel and road processes are being addressed. Besides ERMiT, the principal models under evaluation for slope-scale erosion prediction are: (i) the variant of USLE [4] applied by the Portuguese Water Institute after the wildfires of 2003; (ii) the Morgan–Morgan–Finney model (MMF) [5]; (iii) MEFIDIS [6]. From these models, MEFIDIS and perhaps MMF will, after successful calibration at the slope scale, also be applied for predicting catchment-scale sediment yields of extreme events