A Care Approach to Achieving Gender Justice in Southern African Food Systems in the Context of Climate Change

The document examines the intersection of climate change, gender, and food systems in southern Africa, arguing that climate shocks intensify the burden of unpaid care work disproportionately borne by rural and working-class women. It critiques technocratic, productivity-focused agricultural policies and proposes a framework based on Feminist Ecological Economics and Feminist Political Ecology to reorient food systems around human needs and ecological regeneration. Key recommendations include the redistribution of care work, support for agroecology, and the implementation of gender-responsive fiscal policies.

• Climate change is intensifying gendered care burdens in southern Africa, particularly in food provisioning, agricultural labour, and water collection, which increases "time poverty" for women and limits their access to income and health resources.
• Historical colonial and post-colonial development models in southern Africa subordinated agriculture to industrialisation and drove labour migration, which shifted the burden of food provision and care onto rural women.
• Women in southern Africa face significant structural inequalities regarding land ownership; for example, in Mozambique, women hold only 20% of land titles compared to 80% for men.
• Dominant agricultural policies in the region, such as those promoted by AGRA and national input subsidy schemes, are critiqued as being technocratic and gender-blind, often prioritising corporate-led productivity over the needs of smallholder farmers and the recognition of care work.
• Climate-induced food price volatility disproportionately affects women, who often perform "nutritional sacrifices" by skipping meals to feed other household members.
• Environmental stress and the collapse of livelihoods are linked to an increase in gender-based violence (GBV), as women become more economically dependent on male partners.
• The paper proposes a "5R" framework to address care inequalities: recognise, reward, and represent care work, and reduce and redistribute it.
• The authors advocate for the adoption of agroecology guided by the HLPE’s 13 principles as a way to resist the destructive logics of industrial agriculture and support ecological and social regeneration.
• Fiscal policy should be shifted toward Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and Gender Responsive Climate Budgeting (GRCB) to invest in care infrastructure and social protection rather than following austerity measures.

APA

Bennie, A., Hoveni, J., Madhi, Y., Farr, V., & Ngcukana, L. (2025). A Care Approach to Achieving Gender Justice in Southern African Food Systems in the Context of Climate Change. Institute for Economic Justice. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Working-Paper_-Food-systems-and-care-1.pdf

Chicago

Bennie, Andrew, Jamela Hoveni, Yasirah Madhi, Vanessa Farr, and Lupumlo Ngcukana. A Care Approach to Achieving Gender Justice in Southern African Food Systems in the Context of Climate Change. Institute for Economic Justice, 2025. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Working-Paper_-Food-systems-and-care-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bennie |first1=Andrew |last2=Hoveni |first2=Jamela |last3=Madhi |first3=Yasirah |last4=Farr |first4=Vanessa |last5=Ngcukana |first5=Lupumlo |title=A Care Approach to Achieving Gender Justice in Southern African Food Systems in the Context of Climate Change |publisher=Institute for Economic Justice |date=July 2025 |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Working-Paper_-Food-systems-and-care-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bennie2025care, author = {Bennie, Andrew and Hoveni, Jamela and Madhi, Yasirah and Farr, Vanessa and Ngcukana, Lupumlo}, title = {{A Care Approach to Achieving Gender Justice in Southern African Food Systems in the Context of Climate Change}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2025}, month = jul, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Working-Paper_-Food-systems-and-care-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }