Erik Engel & Samuel Quive
Urban development in both Maputo and Cape Town is strongly linked to the colonial history of Mozambique and South Africa (see text box below). Historical and ongoing urbanisation patterns set the spatial frame for urban agriculture and shape the food systems established in the respec- tive contexts of the two very different countries.
Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is situated at the southernmost tip of the country. Maputo Bay is formed by the estuary of the River Matola on the Indian Ocean and hosts an international harbour that is vital to Mozambique and the land-locked countries of the hinterland. With its strong service sector and strategic infrastructure, Maputo is the economic hub of the country. November 2018 saw the construction of Africa’s longest suspension bridge that connects Maputo with KaTembe and South African cities.
The Maputo mainland consists of the five urban districts of KaMpfumu, KaMayaquene, Nihamankulu, KaMavota and KaMubukwana. Other districts are KaNyaka island and the KaTem- be peninsula. The population amounts to 1.1 million (2017, see Table 2), while urban growth rates are high with 3.3%/year (CIA, 2017 in Halder et al., 2018), especially in the less built-up districts of
KaMubukwana and KaMavota, both of which host large parts of the so-called zonas verdes (green zones), as well as the newly connected district of KaTembe.
Urban agriculture has a long history in Maputo. The green zones were established in colonial times as farmland for colonialists. The farms were occupied by the ‘Black’ South-African popula- tion after Independence in 1975 and witnessed a major influx of internally displaced persons in the course of the civil war (1977 – 1992) that devastated most of the rural areas further north. The socialist government fostered agricultural development in the green zones for self-sufficiency in an effort to render the city’s population less vulnerable to war-related disruptions in the food supply chain.
As a result of the country’s socialist history, farmers in Maputo are well organised in cooperatives and associations. While most urban farmers worldwide are not organised or only loosely linked through NGOs or networks, in Maputo we find a sophisticated structure with over 10 000 farmers organised in 34 associations. The associations serve diverse political, social, legal, educational and economic purposes (see Chapter 3.6). In addition, numerous households with sufficient space conduct home gardening activities.
After the war, Maputo continued to attract migrants in search of economic opportunities. As a consequence, and despite (inconsistent) government support, agricultural land is in growing competition with other uses: previously cultivated land is sold and used for settlements and the attendant infrastructure.
The warm tropical climate is expected to become more unpredictable, with extreme weather events such as droughts and floods on the increase (DSU, 2015). Even now, low lying fields are flooded regularly by overflowing rivers of doubtful water quality.
Once a fishing village, Maputo was finally conquered and fortified (under the name of Lourenco Marques) by the Portuguese in the 18th century, primarily for the purpose of trading with the British colonialists of Southern Africa. It was declared the capital of Mozambique in 1898 and expanded rapidly as a port city and the closest outlet for South African precious minerals. Mapu- to mirrors its colonial past with its highly urbanised ‘cement’ city (polana cemento) opposed to a ‘reed’ city (polana caniço), with many constructions built in adobe and reed, as well as its peri- urban areas.
The ‘cement’ city was originally built for the colonial elite, complete with residential buildings, infrastructure and economic functions. Colonial buildings in the art deco style and tropical mod- ernist architecture mixes with contemporary representative buildings often built by Chinese en- terprises (Jenkins, 2015). Access to the cement city was restricted for ‘non-whites’ up to Inde- pendence in 1975 – they worked during the day in the inner-city neighbourhoods but were not allowed to settle there.
The ‘reed’ city is marked by informal settlements established without an urbanisation plan. The area is dense with horizontal buildings and highly congested. Spaces for service provision are few and far between, as are electricity and safe water sources. Reed buildings are gradually being substituted by structures of more permanent material.
The peri-urban areas are the spatial response to urban expansion and only partly adhere to ur- banisation plans. In neighbourhoods like Zimpeto, an area with an urbanisation plan and some urban infrastructure, remnants of rural habitations can still be seen beside more solid concrete buildings and structures spontaneously built by recent informal in-migrants.
Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa, the capital of the Western Cape Province and an economic hub for the Southern African sub-region. As such it attracts migrants from within and outside the country. With the ongoing rapid urbanisation trends, the population of Cape Town Metropolitan Area is constantly growing and with an annual growth rate of 1.6% has ex- ceeded the four million counted in the 2016 community survey (see Table 2).
Job opportunities and urban infrastructure fail to keep pace with urban growth, and social and economic inequalities persist despite the post-apartheid advent of multi-party democracy and majority rule. Spatial segregation and social inequality (with a Gini Index of 62.5%, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of income distribution) are the result of the politics of apartheid and still have a huge impact on everyday life today. Almost 36% of the population lives below the official poverty line of 3 500 ZAR/month, and despite being an innova- tion hub for the continent, including for IT, half the population of Cape Town has no internet ac- cess (CoCT, 2018).
The Cape Flats, where the predominantly so-called ‘coloured’ and ‘black’10 townships of the
apartheid era are located and approximately two thirds of the population lives, are particularly prone to informal growth, lack of formal employment opportunities, poverty and food-insecurity rates, poor social infrastructure, competition for space and – as a result – a high potential for so- cial conflict and high crime rates in the communities (Battersby, 2012 in Swanby, 2018). Unem- ployment rates often exceed 35%, e.g., in the ‘black’ suburbs of Khayelitsha (38%), Gugulethu (40%), Nyanga and Crossroads (both 45%) (CoCT, 2013). Approximately 10% of the over one mil- lion urban households counted in 2011 live in informal structures (given the character of informal settlements, the real number may be far higher), and up to 40% of the residents of vulnerable ‘black’ suburbs like Khayelitsha and Gugulethu have no access to piped water in their houses or yards (CoCT, 2013).
The Cape Peninsula and Western Cape have been inhabited by humans at least since the middle stone age (South African History, 2011). Early European sailors traded cattle and sheep with the local Khoe pastoralists (Huffman, 2010). Cape Town was established as a relay and magazine for fresh vegetable and meat for sailors of the imperialist powers ever since the first Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in the late 15th century and dislocated the local inhabit- ants. Under Dutch dominion since the 17th century, Cape Town was handed over to the British in 1814. Each imperial power forced and lured people from their other colonies to settle and work in
10 The authors of this report are fully aware of the racist concept underlying the categories created by the apartheid
bureaucracy (‘white’, ‘black’, ‘coloured’, and sub-categories). These categories describe groups of people along so- cially constructed and erratically highlighted differences and commonalities. They are still used in South Africa to- day despite a repeal of the 1950 population registration act by the South African parliament in 1991 in order to re- dress economic and social imbalances. As authors we apply the terms without judgement, based on what we ob- served in the daily conversations of the people concerned. The inclusion of these terms highlights our use of them
South Africa. In addition, religious minorities from war-torn Europe sought refuge from persecu- tion with the mainly protestant ‘white’ population.
The originally multi-racial character of Cape Town’s suburbs was destroyed during the rule of apartheid. Suburbs were purged of ‘illicit inhabitants’ and settlements built to relocate the non- ‘white’ population to less attractive, distant suburbs, the Cape Flats. During apartheid, the Cape region was considered a ‘coloured’ labour preference area to the exclusion of the ‘Black’ South Africans.
The end of apartheid did not eradicate the centuries of racism and divide-and-rule politics. Even today, cooperation across townships, neighbourhoods, between people of different mother lan- guages or ‘racial profiles’ remains challenging. Economic and social cleavages persist, and diverg- ing political affiliations sporadically add to the potential for conflict tangible throughout the city – particularly in the townships.
Apart from the central business district and some isolated high-rise buildings, the majority of the population lives in individual horizontal houses ranging from fancy post-modern villas with a vista of the ocean or Victorian houses surrounded by well-kept gardens (in the northern and southern suburbs) to rugged tin shacks with partly no private toilet or running water in the Cape Flats and eastern suburbs. A network of highways criss-crosses the settled areas and serves as a separator rather than a link between the neighbourhoods. Public transport is chronically inadequate and most local railway lines and buses are considered unsafe.
A number of township households and public buildings (schools, hospitals) or parkland dedicated some space to horticultural production. Although production here plays a minor role in the food system of the city, it serves a niche market in the affluent centre of town and contributes to the household dietary diversity of the families involved in this activity. Cape Town government es- tablished an urban agricultural policy framework in 2007 and hosts a high level of academic de- bate, political institutionalisation and a vast number of institutions involved in urban agriculture (see Chapter 4.2). Despite – or because – of this, farmers depend heavily on NGO and govern- ment support and there is no formal farmer to farmer network to speak of.
A particular case is the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA): 3 000 hectares with high quality soils and access to water all year round allow for five crop cycles per year, making the PHA one of the most productive areas in the country – not surprisingly it is predominantly in the hands of medi- um and big commercial ‘white’ farmers. The area is currently contested: the city’s developer plans to establish a new housing area (see Chapter 4.2).
Located in a Mediterranean climate zone with winter rains and a distinct endemic vegetation, Cape Town has been subjected to extensive drought with a peak in early 2018, when strict water rationing became compulsory. Repeated dry spells met population growth, generous water- consumption habits, and a lack of contingency planning by decision-makers, culminating in emp- ty dams and water restrictions. Extreme weather events of this kind are expected to become more regular with unabated climate change.
Despite a series of local particularities, researchers should not overlook parallels in Maputo and Cape Town to cities in Latin America or Europe: Urban farmers are mostly women; urban gardens and fields have multi-functional uses and serve as a platform for the discussion of a range of ur- ban and rural topics; similar crops such as lettuce, tomatoes or carrots are cultivated and similar (recycling-)techniques such as compost or raised beds are applied (see Chapters 3 and 4); urban farmers tend to be (rural) migrants; urban plantations are often threatened by eviction, short- time land-use contracts or real estate speculation; leading economic and political actors fre- quently attempt to co-opt urban gardens and their positive image; the organisational process is in many instances more challenging than the farming practice itself.
11 Poverty for Cape Town households was defined in 2018 as households earning ZAR 3500 or less per month (CoCT,
2018, p.12). In Maputo, the poverty line is reflected for 2014, based on multi-dimensional poverty indicators. With economic growth fueled by the end of the civil war, poverty rates dropped rapidly from 47.1% (1996) and 29.9%
Table 2: Facts and figures Maputo City and Cape Town Metropolitan Area
Population (2017 esti- mates) Population (projection for 2030) Urban area (km²) Urban growth rate (%/year) % below the poverty line11 Unemploy- ment rate Maputo 1 101 170 1 484 209 300 3.3 11.6% 22.4% Cape Town 4 174 510 5 467,695 2 461 1.6 35.7% 23.8% Sources Maputo: INE (2019a); (2019b); Halder et al., 2018
Sources Cape Town: CoCT, 2018, 2013; World Population Review, 2019; Statistics South Africa, 2016; Halder et al., 2018