Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the dynamics of workforce inclusion and exclusion in South Africa's food sector in response to successive crises of Covid-19, food price hikes, local drought and social unrest, and the weakening of state institutions catalysed by these events.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the dynamics of workforce inclusion and exclusion among food system workers in South Africa. In this sector, many kinds of work involve only partial inclusion, from seasonal picking to farm work interrupted by repetitive injuries, to migrant street vendors working under the threat of government reprisal. In the last three years the boundaries of inclusion have been intensified and sometimes violently re-drawn by successive crises: the near collapse of food supply chains and escalating hunger caused by government regulations to control Covid-19; food and fuel price hikes; local drought; energy shortages; and the July 2021 ‘unrest’ – a period of widespread violence and looting of shops, causing the death of over 300 people and damage to thousands of shops and businesses. The unrest signalled the ineffectiveness of government institutions to withstand pressures from two informal economies: the ‘popular’ economy of the precariat, on the one hand, and the elite network of ANC cadres, blamed for igniting the protests in defence of the Zuma-led faction inside an ANC civil war, on the other hand. These multiple emergencies combine with the ANC’s imminent electoral decline to place a stranglehold over government planning towards sustainable and just economic futures. The paper draws on qualitative and ethnographic research among farmers, shop owners, supermarket employees, street vendors and other food system workers in northern KwaZulu-Natal, conducted by a team of community researchers in 2022-3. It explores how livelihoods are being worked out in a context of successive emergencies and weakening governing institutions.