During and immediately post-Covid-19, the tourism sector – albeit driven by domestic travellers – will be a key linchpin for rebounding South Africa’s agriculture and food economy. This is why agritourism is viewed as a catalyst for much-needed structural change in Mzansi’s food systems.
There is increasingly widespread acknowledgement that globally, food systems are broken. This recognition explains the upcoming UN 2021 Food Systems Summit, which aims to transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks about food.
Top speaker line-up
The supporting independent dialogue, “Driving food system transformation in South Africa via agritourism markets”, will explore the ways in which investments in the agritourism sector will have a direct impact on how food is produced, distributed, and consumed.
It is implemented through a partnership between AgriLuxe Marketing, No-Line Communications, and FANRPAN.
The dialogue, scheduled to take place via a webinar on Wednesday, 9 June 2021, will be facilitated by Dr Sifiso Ntombela, chief economist at the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), with opening remarks from senior officials from both the agriculture and tourism Departments.
Case studies of successful agritourism initiatives will be presented, including from Naledi Farm, !Khwa ttu, Setsong Tea Enterprise, and V&A Waterfront, to identify critical success factors and opportunities for replicating and scaling-up similar activities.
Other sessions will draw on the expertise from farmers, chefs, academia, financial institutions, and government agencies.
Speakers include the head of the women desk at Afasa, South African chef representative of UN-supported Chefs’ Manifesto, the director of the Food Evolution Research Laboratory at the University of Johannesburg, the CEO of the National Development Agency, the agribusiness manager of Standard Bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation country representative.
For agritourism initiatives to succeed, issues of access to finance and land and effective coordination among multiple stakeholders must be addressed. Commercial farmers and chefs also need to be at the forefront of such initiatives.
Driving food transformation
The dialogue will have four working group discussions to outline policy and investment proposals to maximise opportunities in the agritourism sector for supporting South Africa’s food transformation and economic development objectives.
The dialogue’s proceedings will be submitted to the UN process for inclusion in the summit’s agenda. The outputs from the discussions will also be used as input to the national dialogue, which is currently being planned.
Beyond the summit, follow-up support for promoting the decisions of the dialogue will be provided by FANRPAN and AgriLuxe Marketing within the framework of an on-going agritourism initiative, which includes, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and the Gambia.
- Click here to register for the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit.
- Click here fore more information on the dialogue, including the agenda.
