The bitter side of honeybush: exclusion and inequality in South Africa’s honeybush tea industry

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Written by Marta Cefaro, based on her research for her Master’s thesis in rural development and natural resource management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in collaboration with Nelson Mandela University under the supervision of George Sekonya and Klara Fischer. Marta’s research is driven by an interest in the distribution of benefits within supply chains and the protection of Indigenous rights. First published on SIANI website.

Honeybush (Cyclopia spp.), a plant endemic to South Africa, has gained international popularity in recent decades for its health benefits, particularly as a tea. Linked to the Khoi and San peoples (Indigenous Peoples of southern Africa who were living in the area before Bantu-speaking agropastoralists), who hold traditional knowledge related to its use, honeybush has been a source of livelihood for generations. Despite their vital role in developing this knowledge, these communities are excluded from the commercial boom. Why? The answers are rooted in South Africa’s systemic inequalities.

Commercialization for whom?

Historically, honeybush was traditionally processed at home for household consumption or local sale, but since the 1990s the industry has shifted towards more formalized commercial structures. This shift has excluded local communities from value-added stages of production. Communities of traditional knowledge holders are only involved in the first stage of the supply chain: the wild harvesting of the plant. The harvested raw material is then sold to processing facilities where it is processed, packaged, and marketed. Without access to resources such as capital and technology, these communities are unable to process and market the tea themselves, leaving them with only a minimal share of the final product’s value.

The story of the Zoar community

The village of Zoar is located in the Kannaland Municipality in the Western Cape province of the country.  The story and challenges of commercializing honeybush in the Zoar community mirror the complexity of natural resource governance in rural South Africa. Within the community of Zoar, traditional leaders – who exist alongside state authorities in many rural villages of South Africa –  play a key role in the governance of honeybush. They claim control over who gets access to communal lands, where wild honeybush is harvested, and how the benefits from its sale are distributed. Community members who are not part of the traditional authority can only benefit from honeybush harvesting by selling their labor as wild harvesters during harvesting season.

Governance issues are further complicated by the overlap and competition between two different authorities: the local Communal Property Association and the village’s traditional authority. In rural villages undergoing land restitution, South African law permits the creation of Communal Property Associations (CPAs). These are legal entities that can be democratically elected by community members and their primary purpose is to manage communal land on behalf of the community. However, under customary law—recognized by South African legislation—land administration is the responsibility of traditional authorities, who have historically fulfilled this role in rural villages. This situation leads to an overlap between the roles of the two institutions and creates a permanent power struggle. In Zoar, while communal land has been transferred to the CPA, traditional leaders claim their role as decision-makers in local resource governance. This conflict raises questions about which institutions can be considered legitimate and accountable for local resource management, such as the one of honeybush.

Government solutions fall short

Confronted with such inequalities, the South African government has recognized the importance of integrating marginalized communities into the commercialization of biological resources, such as honeybush, through initiatives like Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) agreements. These agreements are intended to ensure that local communities receive a fair share of the benefits resulting from the commercial use of biological resources, particularly when traditional knowledge is involved. However, the implementation of ABS agreements faces significant challenges.

One of the key criticisms is that the negotiation process for ABS agreements often favors more powerful, organized actors, leaving out less-recognized communities or individuals. In many cases, these agreements are negotiated between the industry and traditional leaders, who may not represent and be recognized by all knowledge holders. This situation risks perpetuating inequalities within communities, as those with less access to power or resources are excluded from benefiting from the industry.

Inequalities rooted in the country’s colonial and apartheid history

A major issue with ABS agreements is that they do not address and challenge structural inequalities in access to resources such as land, capital and technology. By leaving power relations unchanged, they do not enable the development of community-based or -owned businesses.

The barriers to equitable inclusion in the honeybush industry are deeply rooted in South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. These historical injustices have entrenched patterns of exclusion, through land dispossession and inequitable resource distribution, which continue to hinder communities’ access to the resources needed for meaningful participation in the development of a biodiversity economy.

A way forward

The commercialization of honeybush might offer economic potential for local communities in South Africa, but this can only be realized if deeply rooted inequalities are addressed. On one hand, reliance on traditional authorities for resource control and negotiations risks sidelining marginalized groups or individuals. On the other hand, mechanisms like ABS agreements fail to tackle the structural inequalities that underpin exclusion from the industry. A more inclusive approach to honeybush commercialization is needed – one that empowers communities through improved access to resources, supports community-owned enterprises, and ensures equitable governance structures.

Gendered perspectives on nature-positive solutions: insights from small-scale farmers in Kenya

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A farmer showing her field in Kisumu County, Kenya. Her fields had suffered severe soil erosion in recent few years. Photo by Elsa Wallin for NATURE+

This blog post is written by Dickson Kinuthia, International Food Policy Research Institute, and Elsa Wallin, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. It was first published at CGIAR blog.

Nature-positive solutions face many barriers to adoption. Research in Kenya shows that entrenched gender roles, which tend to leave women the brunt of the work and lesser economic power, need to be considered for the successful implementation of nature-positive agriculture, particularly if it leads to higher farm income. The design and implementation of nature-positive solutions therefore requires keen attention to the gender divide.

Agricultural-based livelihoods, especially for women and other marginalized groups, are at risk due to multiple challenges including climate change, entrenched inequality, lack of investment to improve livelihoods and inadequate policy frameworks to support small-scale producers.

Additionally, the prioritization of mass-scale production of cheap food, industrial agriculture has inflicted a disastrous cost on the environment and people, leading to deforestation, land degradation, water depletion and biodiversity loss and increased global greenhouse gas emissions. global greenhouse gas emissions. This status-quo approach to agriculture adds to the challenges faced by smallholders, who rely on healthy, natural systems to eke out a living.

The CGIAR Nature-Positive Solutions Initiatives (NATURE+) aims to address these challenges by re-imagining, co-creating, and transforming agri-food systems to deliver food and livelihoods for people sustainably. This involves responsible natural resources management, enabling agriculture to be a net positive contributor to nature, and staying within planetary boundaries. Nature-positive solutions are critical for reducing and reversing biodiversity loss while improving food production and strengthening smallholder farmers’ resilience.

However, research remains limited on the gender-differentiated impacts of unsustainable agricultural practices, perception, awareness of and preferences for nature-positive solutions, and capacities to contribute to nature-positive food systems. A qualitative study conducted under the framework of NATURE+ in Kenya aims to shed light and understand gender differences in perception, awareness, constraints and incentives to the adoption of nature-positive solutions. The results presented here draw on this qualitative data collected in the Kenyan counties of Kajiado, Kisumu and Vihiga.

The NATURE+ research team at a farm in Kisumu County, Kenya that has mango trees integrated in the field. Photo: courtesy of Elsa Wallin for NATURE+

The overall pattern of labor division revealed clear gendered responsibilities. For example, women actively engaged in planting maize and vegetables for household consumption or lower-value market sales. Men engaged in planting beans, millet, and other crops that fetch higher prices in the market. Moreover, men were involved in field preparations such as ploughing, as this was perceived to be a challenging task that required a man’s strength. Women, on the other hand, played a key role in planting, weeding, and harvesting, often tedious and time-consuming tasks. Concerning livestock, men tended to own cattle, sheep, and goats while women often only owned poultry, which are less profitable.

Despite limited ownership of livestock, women played a significant role in caring for livestock. They were involved in feeding the animals and milking the cows. A male participant in Kajiado County explained that the woman in the household was responsible for milking the cows and cleaning the cowshed and “the man comes in only during the slaughtering and selling of cattle.”

In addition to the farm work, women carried a considerable burden of responsibilities in the home. This led women to work long hours and have less free time than men in general. In the literature, this is often referred to as time poverty, affecting women. Therefore, women have limited possibilities to participate in training on nature-positive solutions and to adopt beneficial agricultural practices that are more time-consuming, such as nature-positive practices.

Technology-adoption questions

Many farmers expressed a vision of a more mechanized agriculture future to run their farms. However, the adoption of technology could have both positive and negative gender outcomes. For example, the time-consuming activity of fetching water was the responsibility of women and children, but in case a motorcycle was used men were willing to help with the task, thus reducing the disproportionate allocation on household chores for women. Similarly, the threshing and winnowing of sorghum was another female-dominated task performed manually, but if machinery were used, men would be willing to participate. However, it could also have the contrary effect of men taking over and excluding women from the activity and as such keeping them from learning and limiting their influence on decision-making on sorghum cultivation and sale.

The gender division of labor and control of agricultural resources could vary slightly according to the household structure. Monogamous families had a clear structure of the man being the head of the household, overseeing decisions related to crops and livestock. In polygamous families, resources such as livestock and land were often strictly divided between the wives and therefore allowed for some more independence in decision-making. However, the husband was the ultimate owner, and the wives were still required to do the necessary labor to care for the men’s fields and livestock. In female-headed households, women were less confined by strict gender roles and could participate in tasks and acquire skills they were traditionally not given access to. Despite this, they often had low access to resources limiting the productivity and management of their farm.

Considering that women were in general disfavored when it came to agricultural resource access and ownership and had a disproportionate burden of time-consuming responsibilities, gender and women empowerment needs to be at the core when promoting nature-positive solutions or sustainable agricultural practices in general. Nevertheless, men could perceive it as threatening to their role as household heads and providers if women got too much influence in agricultural decision-making processes. A key take-away is therefore to work simultaneously to support women’s empowerment and educate and involve men to reduce the risk of tensions within the community. This is crucial in promoting long-term sustainability when supporting small-scale farmers in transitioning to nature-positive solutions.

In conclusion, nature-positive solutions are critical for restoration and prevention of further biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, while ensuring that agricultural production bridges the food and nutrition security gap. Understanding gender-differentiated roles, constraints, and preferences can enable policymakers and practitioners to design and promote nature-positive practices that meet men’s and women’s needs while protecting nature. These should be disseminated in ways that reach, benefit, and empower women. Gender-responsive design and scaling of nature-positive solutions can help reduce gender inequalities in agrifood systems, while enabling both men and women to contribute to environmental sustainability.

Challenging young minds

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This blog post is written by Kerstin Scragg, teacher at Celsiusskolan in Uppsala. 

Me and Erik, one of the high school students from SLU Youth Institute.

I have had the great pleasure to join SLU Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa, to participate at Global Youth Institute and the World Food Prize conference which focuses on future food security. We have enjoyed inspiring talks and lectures, participated in different workshops and our two Swedish high school students have presented essays at a round table conversation together with other students and experts in respective field.  I work as a teacher at a high school in Uppsala and this trip really started a year ago when I signed my class up to write the Global Youth Institute’s Global Challenge essay. The overall topic of these essays is the UN’s sustainable development goal 2, End Hunger. The students chose a country with food insecurity related problems, in addition, they described the food security situation in the country and explained what is currently being done to battle these issues. In the end, they handed their essays in to SLU Youth Institute where some were chosen to participate in one of three round table conversations, given at each campus. One, out of these twenty-five students at each round table conversation, was elected to go to the U.S. to present the essay and take part of the Global Youth Institute conference in Des Moines, so here we are.

At the Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, we have enjoyed several interesting talks and presentations by leading figures in the battle of ending hunger globally, such as the CEO at the African Bank, the United States Secretary of Agriculture, this years’ World Food Prize laureates and many more. One example of a lecture was when we learned more about deep space travelling and some challenges feeding the crew during these journeys. Another interesting lecture taught us how artificial intelligence, AI, can help women in agriculture.

Maja and Erik at the House of Laureates

What I find inspiring is how these, about a hundred teenagers, are at the very centre of it all. Whether it being the content of the talks or activities chosen, all is relevant and elaborated for these possible future researchers and policy makers and, despite the long days, seems to succeed in engaging them no matter the topic. It is truly luxurious to watch and take part in these days, which I am sure will shape these young minds for a long time. This is not only an important investment for the future but also a way to let these students know how much they matter.

We are probably all aware of some of the challenges that Swedish schools face, such as large class sizes, which leads to the fact that it can be difficult to challenge gifted students every lesson. During this conference students are just that, they are challenged both socially and intellectually. To me, seeing my student, along with the others, being stimulated and inspired by the activities and talks at the Global Youth Institute, has been the most rewarding part of the journey and I can only hope I get to send more students to Global Youth Institute in the future.


 

SLU Youth Institute (SLU YI) aims to create interest among Swedish youth for global food security and to find sustainable solutions to the global challenges based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. SLU Youth Institute is the Swedish part of many Youth Institutes coordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation. Read more at our Swedish website!

A journey back in time – Reflections from IUFRO 2024

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This blog post is written by Anna-Klara Lindeborg, research advisor at SLU Global, in conjunction to IUFRO 2024.

Rubber plantation in Laos. Photo: Anna-Klara Lindeborg

As IUFRO 2024 – Forest and Society towards 2050 is coming to an end, I am reflecting on some of the sessions at the conference in conjunction to my own career path and research. The focus is to put attention to the research within the forestry sector and gender, a topic that has been part of my life for almost twenty years and an evident topic at IUFRO 2024.

Taking part in the session Local ecological knowledge of non-wood forest products for sustainable forest management and human well-being in diverse contexts, brings me back to 2006, when I was carrying out a Minor Field Study in Laos about gendered labour and the collection of fuel wood, which later became the reason why I wanted to apply for a PhD position.

When I was admitted as a PhD student in Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University one year later, I signed up for a PhD course in Forest Governance at SLU. Part of the course was to participate in a pre-conference training workshop in Umeå with the title Adaptation of Forests to Climate Change: Working effectively at the Interface of Forest Science and Forest Policy, jointly organised by IUFRO’s Special Programme for Developing Countries (IUFRO-SPDC) and SLU. A special session was set up focusing on gender relations – Asking the right questions of society-forest adaptation – How can a gender perspective help? Gun Lidestav, associate professor in forest management at SLU, was the main driver of the session. She has been heavily engaged in IUFRO in several ways and in the field of gender and forestry. In IUFRO 2024 she was moderating the poster session In practice of a gender equal and inclusive forestry sector. One of the presentations focused on the project Gender dimensions to climate resilience of cocoa farming systems in West Africa, involving SLU professor Francisco Aguilar.

Another researcher at SLU contributing to the field of gender and forestry is Professor Seema Arora-Jonsson, who was teaching at the Forest Governance PhD course in 2008 that I was undertaking and was now participating in IUFRO 2024 in the session Integration of gender and diversity perspectives in knowledge production, amongst other things.

At the rubber plantation. Photo: Anna-Klara Lindeborg

Inspired by Lidestav’s and Arora-Jonsson’s work, I continued writing on my PhD thesis, which I defended in 2012 with the title Where Gendered Spaces Bend – the rubber phenomenon in Northern Laos. Associate professor Ann Grubbström, researcher in Environmental Communication at SLU, was in addition important for my research, as her comments and input meant a lot for my PhD thesis. She also participated at IUFRO 2024 in the poster session Smart Forestry – Transforming Forestry and the Future Forest Workforce and has hence contributed a lot to the research field of gender and forestry.

After different turns and career paths, I started as a research advisor at SLU Global in 2021. One of the tasks I have been engaged with recently is the MOOC for Gender Equality and Diversity in Forestry, coordinated by Ida Wallin, researcher at the Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, SLU. The MOOC is supposed to achieve gender equality and diversity in forest-related sectors as well as bridging the education–practice gap. In addition, the course is one of the outputs for Gender Equality Taskforce within IUFRO, an important and relevant contribution from SLU Global and contributes to the implementation of the policy for SLU’s global contribution to Agenda 2030.

So to conclude it seems that several things are coming together attending IUFRO 2024. Almost 20 years have passed since I started to engage in the gender and forestry sector, but it is still a very vibrant and visible theme that is needed, even though it has developed a lot along the way. Many researchers at SLU are also involved within this broad research field, just a few of them mentioned here. I am pleased to say that I have contributed a little bit to this, however additional research is still needed on the topic which I hope to see at IUFRO 2029 in Kenya.

Social, environmental and economic challenges facing biodiversity in the Andes: Does the solution lie in the hands of the young?

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In the mountains region of Peru, at an altitude of 3000 to 4200 meters above sea level and in between multiple communities, there is a treasure of a landrace diversity of indigenous crops that has been maintained for thousands of years. However, this biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge is now at risk of eroding due to a continuous increase in youth’s migration to urban areas. Recently, I had the privilege to participate in a 10-day study tour to investigate and learn about key innovations of human adaptation to socio-ecological change and the conservation of agrobiodiversity. This tour exposed different aspects of crop diversity conservation by smallholder farmers and the significance of maintaining it for future generations. 

When leaving Peru’s capital city of Lima, one becomes quickly exposed to a different reality involving mountain culture and complex landscapes. Additionally, due to the brief description of the tour’s activities, I had no expectations prior to travelling. As a result, the tour truly shook my world in more ways than one. Together with a group of over twenty people from different countries, we witnessed a deep sense of pride in the country’s deeply rooted food patrimony and its linked agrobiodiversity. Between visiting different towns and rural communities, I was doing my own inquiry about rural youth’s perspective on the conservation of indigenous crops and landraces along with the challenges and opportunities associated with making a decent livelihood in the rural highlands.

Some members talking about strategies for engaging youth and women

With our first stop being Huamachuco, a town located in the north of Peru, we were instantly greeted by spectacular views and great hospitality. We had the chance to attend the annual meeting with AGUAPAN, (Association of Guardians of the Native Potato). Growing a high diversity of native potatoes, one of their main goals is preserving biodiversity and the culture surrounding it whilst putting an emphasis on social inclusion and gender equality. During the meeting, members approached matters like commerce and marketing of native potatoes with Miski papa, (the collective brand of AGUAPAN), migration of youth, communication problems and climate change. By this, they stimulate conversation about development while giving the farmers a voice and allowing them to join forces and exchange knowledge. The marketing of the native potato could possibly generate multiple job opportunities which will motivate younger people to stay and care for the crop. Moreover, seeing as it is a current issue, one of the topics discussed was youth’s and women’s engagement in agriculture, which many farmers had various ideas about. Seeing as potato seeds are passed down to generation by generation, many mentioned family dynamic and cultural appreciation as part of the solution. “We have to motivate the young to join AGUAPAN, and not only them but their families too, and with this our children will cultivate our native potato and unite with the group” suggested one member. Many seem to share this opinion, even youth. Talking with a younger member, he reveals that his motivation for conserving potato landraces comes from his family. “My ancestors had enough trust with their children to pass on this significant knowledge, I wanted my father to have the same ability to trust me and I hope I’ll do the same with my own children”.

Two women in a community posing for a picture. 

Continuing the tour, our next stop was Jauja, where we went on to visit different communities. With being the first foreigners to step foot in some of these communities, we were welcomed by people wearing their mesmerising and vibrant traditional clothing whilst singing and dancing. We were shown a plethora of different potato varieties and even informed about their names in Quechua, which are often related to their appearance. When asked about the roles of the members, the president of the community said: “We teach them (the children) how to plant and conserve the seeds, the benefits of each crop and how to share this knowledge. The women are seed selectors”. Furthermore, despite the women shying away from speaking, they are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the names of each variety. However, they are not the only ones as there are some kids who also possess this skill. An eight-year-old girl by the name of Roxanna approached me and started explaining some of the names. “My mother taught me (the names). I always go to the field with my parents. We grow everything together and work together on the land” she said. “Which one is your favourite?” I asked, and she looked at me like I just asked her to discard one of her dolls. “All of them”, she simply responded.

Now in the city of Huancayo, the capital of the Junín region, we are farther away from the farmers and getting in contact with nutrition where I learned about the Escuelas Sostenibles project. The project’s focus is obtaining food security for school children, which it does by using agroecological products in the alimentation system whilst also focusing on aspects like family farming. Hence, by this contributing to a developing local economy, internalizing healthy nutrition and preserving the local diversity. Therefore, Huancayo is an inspiration for nearby cities and provinces. For children, this can help create an interest in nutrition and agrobiodiversity as they are constantly exposed to an environment where a wide range of crops is related to healthy habits and sustainability. For the future, maintaining agrobiodiversity through systems like this could help in generating an abundant amount of career opportunities and therefore prosperity and a higher living standard as a result. Evidently, increasing the likelihood of younger people pursuing a career in agriculture.

The inhabitants of Laraos demostrating a ritual

Back in the Lima region, now we are in the beautiful village of Laraos. Tragically, it seemed as the closer we got to the city of Lima; the fewer youthful faces encountered ours. Further discussions with the farmers revealed that young people do return in time for festivals, like Laraos’ annual water festival (Limpia Sequia). “They come to the parties, identify with their culture and then leave. But yes, one notices that they come with a great will to dance, participate and have a good time.” The farmer said. Despite this, the future looks bright for Laraos. Already benefiting from agroecotourism, the inhabitants of the village have also explored the intimate link between agrobiodiversity and modern gastronomy by releasing the internationally praised cookbook with native recipes, SABORES. This link is of great significance for youth engagement in the maintenance of agrobiodiversity as it associates culinary arts with native crops and traditional knowledge. The short distance to the city of Lima along with the abundance of culinary schools, makes Laraos the ideal place for an alliance between the farmers and the modern-day chefs. Evidently, working closely with the local cuisine will help make youth realize the importance of agriculture and that a career in it does not lack prestige. Moreover, it also contributes to the development of the local economy and with access to societal services, which automatically will better the living quality. Others, however, share a different opinion. “What will solve all these problems we have is political change. The government needs to recognize us and our struggles. That is what will solve this, nothing else.” is what one farmer shared with us.

During this tour, a single question kept lurking in the shadow of all their stories; what will happen if youth continue to abandon what their ancestors have built up for decades? The answer is certainly scary. Custodian farmers in the Peruvian highlands continue to maintain and propagate a wide range of landraces and their cultural identity by constantly improving agriculture, implementing new techniques and technologies, making optimal use of the land and putting emphasis on a continuous process of innovation and evolution of the native potato. However, the key element in their preservation is passing on the knowledge to their children. Thus, it is crucial for young people to realize that despite all the challenges facing them, a plethora of possibilities lie in their place of origin which could motivate them to stay working closely with agrobiodiversity.

Photo credits: Huda Ibrahim.


SLU Youth Institute (SLU YI) aims to create interest among Swedish youth for global food security and to find sustainable solutions to the global challenges based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. SLU Youth Institute is the Swedish part of many Youth Institutes coordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation. Read more at our Swedish website!