TINASHE P. KANOSVAMHIRA

Food Security

Tinashe is an urban geographer. His research interests are drawn from a broad range of sociospatial issues, including urban governance, livelihood strategies of the urban poor, urban food security, urban food systems, and neoliberal teaching assistant and part-time lecturer in the department of Geography, Environmental Studies & Tourism.

What is/was your work about?

My name is Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira, and I’m from Bulawayo. I graduated with a Ph.D. in September 2022. I am a part-time urban geography lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, where I lecture several undergraduate and post-graduate modules in the Department of Geography, Environmental Studies, and Tourism. My Ph.D. research focused on exploring the nexus between urban community gardens and food justice. Food justice aims to address disparities in food access, particularly in communities of colour and low-income communities, by examining the structural roots of the corporate

How is it impacting your community?

My doctoral study was conducted in different neighbourhoods of the Cape Flats region of Cape Town, South Africa, where hundreds of urban farmers cultivate vegetables in groups, mainly on municipal and school land. Food apartheid is a daily reality in this area due to the systemic segregation that divided access to nutritious food under apartheid and is perpetuated by the corporate food system. I conducted in-depth interviews with 34 urban community garden leaders, 32 civil society actors, and local and provincial officials who support urban community gardens in the area over a period of 20 months. The use of semi-structured interviews aimed to gather qualitative information. I found that some urban community gardens are consciously promoting food justice through the de-commodification of agroecological vegetables, improved access to agroecological vegetables, and the conscientization of local communities on food rights. My research shows that more coordination is required to create an effective movement that could have a more impactful and sustained role in the promotion of food justice within these distressed communities. I don’t seek to romanticise urban community gardens as a solution to the food injustice in these areas, but it is important to acknowledge the role these transformative urban spaces can play in enlightening the community on structural problems presented by the current corporate food system.

How has your work contributed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

My research aligns with Sustainable Goal 11Sustainable Cities and Communities because it argues that urban community gardens present transformative spaces that promote more sustainable value chains that benefit the distressed neighbourhoods of the Cape Flats of Cape Town, South Africa. Urban community gardens can help to educate the broader community on issues relating to the inequality of the food system and also facilitate the organisation of urban farmers for purposes that go beyond cultivation to education for the broader disadvantaged communities. The results of this study have been communicated back to the various communities involved, as well as the most important stakeholders, in the hope that the information can be useful in enhancing urban agriculture in the city.