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Rick has over 40 years experience working in the land sector in Southern Africa. He is part of the Land Portal knowledge engagement team working to research and develop knowledge resources including data stories, blogs and in-depth country profiles for Southern, Central and Eastern Africa.
Rick is also a Senior Research Associate with Phuhlisani NPC - a South African land sector NGO and the curator of specialist Southern African land news and analysis website https://knowledgebase.land
He tweets on land related issues Twitter account https://twitter.com/KnowledgebaseL
He has a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research in Langa, Cape Town features as the central case study in a recent book Urban Planning in the Global South (2018), co-authored with the late Vanessa Watson, which examines the on-going contestations over land and housing in the rapidly growing cities of the global South.
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The impact of the South African drought as experienced by small holder farmers
Between late 2014 and June 2016, South Africa experienced an El Niño-related drought, which various reports claim to be the worst meteorological drought in the southern Africa region in 35 years. In February 2016, the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL) commissioned a drought impact assessment (DIA) in the Mopani district of Limpopo province, as part of its Agro-ecology Awareness (AeA) project, and Supporting Smallholder Agriculture programme. This report provides the findings of this assessment.
Small holder farmers and organic agriculture in South Africa
This paper is a systematic review of published literature pertaining to organic agriculture in South Africa. The review gives an overview of the status of the organic sector in South Africa, in terms of both agriculture and market trends. The specific focus is on issues surrounding the development of smallholder farmers within the organic sector. The document includes three case studies of organic smallholder farming projects from around South Africa: the Heiveld Cooperative (Northern Cape), Ezemvelo Farmers’ Organisation (KwaZulu-Natal) and Siyavuna (KwaZulu-Natal).
Smallholder farmer market segmentation toolkit
This document provides an introduction to the Smallholder Farmer Market Segmentation Toolkit produced by the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) and the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL) during 2014 and 2015.
Supporting small holder farmers to enter the South African organic sector
The overarching aim of the study was to identify ways through which smallholder farmers could be supported to enter the sector.
The objectives of the project were to:
Finding an integrated market standard alternative small holder farmers in South Africa
This is a report from a workshop organised by the Southern Africa Food LAB (SAFL) in collabora?on with Solidaridad Southern Africa, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to develop a set of entry level standard principles; and an integrated environmental, ethical, and social market standard for smallholder farmers.
An introduction to localg.a.p
This manual provides a short history of localg.a.p. and its entry into South Africa and provides information for trainers providing support to small holder farmers who want to achieve localg.a.p. compliance.
The Future of South Africa’s Food System:
The vitally important provision of food through the food system is not a simple linear process, but a contested outcome of a complex system. This systematic literature review was undertaken to better understand the inherent complexity of this system and inform a long‐ term scenario‐planning process aimed at ensuring a food secure future in South Africa.
Supporting Smallholders into Commercial Agriculture: a social dialogue and learning
The Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL) and the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape (PLAAS) are engaged in a project called Supporting Smallholders into Commercial Agriculture: A social dialogue and learning project. This project has been designed to ensure strong linkages between academic research and processes of social dialogue, policy debate, media dissemination and institutional learning among stakeholders involved in the development of smallholder agriculture. This report documents the proceedings of the first innovation lab.
The Future of Food 2015-2030
What is the future of food in South Africa? What might the food system look like in 2030, in terms of production, processing, distribution and consumption? Many people are asking similar questions and producing vision statements, policies and forecasts to enable anticipation and planning in a volatile system. They are all telling stories about the future – some optimistic, some dire. But these stories tend to be disconnected, narrated past each other to different audiences. The four scenarios contained in this document tell a more connected set of stories.
Southern Africa Food Lab
The Southern Africa Food Lab (Food Lab) is a multi-stakeholder initiative that grapples with questions around food systems in southern Africa to foster long-term food security in the region. The initiative brings together diverse, influential stakeholders in the regional food system in order to respond to systemic issues in creative ways and to inspire change in how we think about and act on complex social challenges.