By Rirhandzu Marivate, Programmes Manager at SA Urban Food and Farming Trust (SAUFFT), BSc (Hons) Ecology, Environment and Conservation, Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development and Planning (Food Systems), MPhil Candidate in Sustainable Development (Food Systems)
As South African cities continue to grow, I find myself returning to an increasingly urgent question: What does a just, inclusive, and climate-compatible urban land-use framework actually look like when land is scarce, inequality is entrenched, and our ecological assets are under pressure?
It is a question that cannot be answered through technical planning tools alone.
Too often, urban land-use discussions are framed around zoning schemes, development approvals, infrastructure investments, and spatial plans. While these tools have their place, they tend to treat land as a passive commodity, something to be divided, allocated, regulated, and managed.
But the reality of our cities tells a different story.
Through my work with the SA Urban Food and Farming Trust (SAUFFT), I have spent time alongside urban farmers, informal food traders, community kitchens, organic waste recyclers, and many other food systems actors working in marginalised communities. What I have learned is that cities are not simply collections of buildings and infrastructure. They are living systems shaped by relationships, negotiation, adaptation, and collective action.
When formal systems fail, as they often do, people become the infrastructure that keeps communities functioning.
If we are serious about creating cities that are more just, resilient, and climate compatible, we must start by recognising and investing in these human infrastructures.
Seeing Urban Food Systems Differently
One of the greatest limitations of conventional planning is that it often evaluates urban food initiatives through a narrow lens of production.
Urban food gardens, for example, are frequently judged by how much food they produce and whether they contribute significantly to citywide food security. Because they rarely generate the volumes associated with commercial agriculture, they are often overlooked in planning and development conversations.
I believe this misses the point entirely.
Consider the Langa Agrihub in Cape Town, which supports more than 250 farmers across approximately 30 gardens. If we measure these spaces solely by the amount of food they produce, we fail to see their broader contribution to community life.
These gardens are not simply places where vegetables are grown.
They are spaces where people build relationships, develop skills, support one another, and exercise agency over their environments. They contribute to mental well-being, create opportunities for civic participation, and strengthen community resilience. In communities where green infrastructure is often lacking, they also play an important ecological role by regenerating soil, improving biodiversity, and helping neighbourhoods adapt to climate-related challenges.
When I look at these spaces, I do not see temporary land uses waiting to be replaced by something more valuable.
I see strategic community assets. I see farmers acting as land architects, shaping healthier and more resilient urban environments.
A truly just land-use framework would recognise and support this contribution.
Bridging the Right to Food and the Right to the City
One of the recurring challenges in South Africa’s food policy landscape is that we continue to focus heavily on production.
National discussions about food security often revolve around how much food is produced and whether agricultural output is increasing. Yet for many urban residents, food insecurity is not primarily about production. It is about access.
Food can be available, and people can still go hungry.
This is why I believe we need to bridge the gap between the Right to Food and the Right to the City.
The right to food cannot be understood in isolation. It is deeply connected to access to clean water, sanitation, affordable energy, transport, and dignified living conditions. A household may have access to food, but without water to wash it or electricity to cook it, meaningful food security remains out of reach.
The South African Human Rights Commission has consistently highlighted the state’s obligation to ensure access to sufficient food. Yet our planning systems remain largely food blind.
We plan for roads. We plan for housing. We plan for transport and public amenities.
But we rarely plan for the everyday food environments that determine whether people can access, prepare, and consume nutritious and culturally appropriate meals.
If we are serious about building climate-compatible cities, we must move beyond viewing food simply as an agricultural issue. We need to recognise food as a critical urban planning issue that intersects with health, infrastructure, social justice, and human dignity.
Recognising Informal Food Traders as Essential Infrastructure
If we accept the idea that people are infrastructure, then informal food traders must be recognised as some of the most important infrastructure in African cities.
Across South Africa, informal traders are often the primary source of food for low-income communities. They provide affordable, accessible food close to where people live and work. They serve areas that formal retail systems frequently neglect.
Yet despite their importance, they are often treated as a problem to be managed.
Our planning systems continue to rely on permits, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms that frequently work against these traders rather than alongside them. We view them as obstructions in public spaces instead of recognising the essential service they provide.
I believe this approach fundamentally misunderstands how our cities function.
Informal traders are among the most resilient actors in our urban food systems. They navigate economic uncertainty, climate-related disruptions, and shifting market conditions every day. Their ability to adapt is not accidental; it is the result of deep local knowledge and constant innovation.
Rather than designing systems that constrain them, we should be creating systems that support them.
Inclusive land-use planning requires moving beyond policing and towards co-production. It requires recognising informal food traders as partners in building resilient cities.
From Structural Planning to Relational Planning
Ultimately, I believe the challenge before us is not simply one of better policies or more sophisticated planning tools.
It is about changing how we think.
For too long, urban planning has been dominated by structural approaches that prioritise technical solutions while overlooking the relationships and social ecosystems that sustain communities.
I am increasingly convinced that we need a more relational approach to land use.
This means moving beyond the false binaries that often dominate our conversations – people versus nature, development versus conservation, formal versus informal.
The reality is far more interconnected.
Across our cities, food systems actors are already responding to many of the challenges we seek to address. Urban farmers are regenerating land. Community kitchens are strengthening social networks. Informal traders are ensuring food access. Organic waste recyclers are contributing to circular economies.
The question is not whether these actors have a role to play in shaping urban futures.
The question is whether our planning systems are prepared to recognise and support them.
Reimagining What Urban Justice Looks Like
For me, a just, inclusive, and climate-compatible urban land-use framework begins with a simple set of questions.
Does it protect the right of a farmer in Langa to regenerate soil and grow food?
Does it allow a street trader to earn a dignified livelihood?
Does it create the conditions for communities to access, prepare, and consume nutritious food?
Does it recognise communities not merely as participants in planning processes, but as co-governors of the spaces they inhabit?
These questions move us beyond technical planning and into the realm of justice.
Because land-use decisions are never simply about land.
They are about whose lives matter, whose knowledge counts, and whose futures are prioritised.
If we are to build cities capable of navigating inequality, climate change, and rapid urbanisation, we must stop treating food systems actors as peripheral to urban development. They are already doing the work of building resilience, strengthening communities, and caring for urban ecosystems.
The future of our cities will depend on whether we recognise this reality.
A truly just land-use framework is one where the informal food trader is safe, the community gardener is recognised as a land architect, and the Right to the City is inseparable from the Right to Eat.
SA Urban Food & Farming Trust 