Agri-Food Sustainability in a Post-COVID World

While Africa may have escaped the worst effects of COVID19, its endemic crises relating to poverty, malnutrition and hunger continues amidst a myriad of other problems. The global effects of the Ukraine war will most likely affect Africa severely at the most basic level: sustenance and livelihoods.

This sessions calls for papers focussing on such a crises, particularly in the area of food, agriculture and livelihoods for ordinary Africans. With the tenuous post-COVID world emerging and its resultant re-ordering of the social order, African social policy needs to resolutely create the environments for a better life for all. The call here is for papers on alternative forms of livelihoods that suggest greater development of local, regional and continental networks and production lines for sustenance and for a sustainable future for Africa’s mass populations.

One alternative is in the area of indigenous foods that can serve to rekindle local economies and assist towards livelihoods but also for a healthier intake of food as contrasted to the manufactured variety of foods that are imported to Africa. The indigenous food market is operational but may not survive for long with the hegemonic thrust of western products in African settings. The session calls for how alternative forms of food chains can be developed, what associational forms are needed and how they can be sustained in the long-term. African production of its own food is one of the basic aspects