An agroecological vision of perennial agriculture (2021) – Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems

By: Jules Reynolds, Michael Bell, Jacob Grace, Claudio Gratton, Randall D. Jackson, Keefe O. Keeley, and Diane Mayerfeld

Abstract: Not all agriculture based on perennial plants is ecologically sound or socially just. But an agroecological concept of perennial agriculture must be. We suggest three key elements of an agroecological vision for perennial agriculture. First, perennial agriculture must be managed with regard for the future as much as the present. Second, perennial agriculture must be situated in an ecological and social context, meeting the material, social, and ecological needs of the individuals and communities that engage in producing agricultural goods – making it what we term an “agroecological endeavor.” Third, perennial agriculture must include a diversity of plants, including – but not limited to – perennial plants. Thus, we propose envisioning perennial agriculture as the perennial management of an agroecological endeavor that includes perennial plants.

Environmental apartheid: Eco-health and rural marginalization in South Africa (2016) – Journal of Rural Studies

By: Valerie Stull, Michael Bell, and Mpumelelo Ncwadi

Abstract:  South Africa’s infamous apartheid policies were not based on social, political, and economic injustice alone. They were also instituted environmentally with consequences that continue to scar the land and its people today. We offer the term environmental apartheid to refer to the use of the rural environment to deliberately marginalize racially defined groups, as well as the subsequent consequences of that marginalization. In the case of South Africa, the paradigmatic example of apartheid, environmental apartheid was largely instituted through rural marginalization, the use of rural space as an environmental means of marginalization. Although legal apartheid is over, environmental apartheid and its consequences continue to oppress Black South Africans, with devastating implications for their health, livelihoods, and ecological integrity. We illustrate these rural injustices through a case study of Manzimdaka, a community of smallholder farmers on communal land in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province.