Farming the South African “Bush”: Ecologies of belonging and exclusion in rooibos tea

Contributions of African Crops to American Culture and Beyond: The Slave Trade and Other Journeys of Resilient Peoples and Crops

There is a general unawareness of food crops indigenous to the African continent that have contributed to Western culture. This under-appreciation is particularly relevant in the current context of societal movements to end historic racism and value the contributions of peoples of African origin and African skin colors. Lack of awareness of the contributions of Africa's crops has negative practical consequences, including inadequate investments in preserving and maximizing the use of crop diversity to facilitate breeding. This paper provides an overview and analysis of African crops that have made significant contributions to the United States and globally, and/or hold potential in the twenty-first century. The paper specifically discusses watermelon, coffee, kola, rooibos, oil palm, shea, cowpea/black eyed pea, leafy greens, okra, yam, sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, teff, and fonio. The review focuses on the intersection of these crops with racialized peoples, with a particular focus on African-Americans starting with slavery. The analysis includes the sites of domestication of African crops, their historical migration out of Africa, their sociocultural contributions to cuisines and products around the world, their uses today, and the indigenous knowledge associated with traditional cultivation and landrace selection. The untapped potential of local genetic resources and indigenous agronomic strategies are also described. The review demonstrates that African crops played an important role in the development of American cuisine, beverages and household products. Many of these crops are nutritious, high value and stress tolerant. The paper concludes that African crops hold significant promise in improving the resiliency of global food production systems, to mitigate climate change and alleviate food insecurity and rural poverty, especially in dry regions of the world. It is hoped that this review contributes to teaching the next generation of agriculturalists, food scientists and international development professionals about the valuable contributions of Africa's resilient crops and peoples.

The Rooibos Benefit Sharing Agreement-Breaking New Ground with Respect, Honesty, Fairness, and Care

The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its 2010 Nagoya Protocol brought about a breakthrough in global policy making. They combined a concern for the environment with a commitment to resolving longstanding human injustices regarding access to, and use of biological resources. In particular, the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities was no longer going to be exploited without fair benefit sharing. Yet, for 25 years after the adoption of the CBD, there were no major benefit sharing agreements that led to significant funding streams for indigenous communities. This changed with the signing of the Rooibos Benefit Sharing Agreement in South Africa, described in this paper. As the authors report, the Rooibos Agreement is a superlative in two respects. It is the biggest benefit sharing agreement between industry and indigenous peoples to date. It is also the first industry-wide agreement to be formed in accordance with biodiversity legislation. This article is a co-production between traditional knowledge holders, the lawyer who represented their interests, the Co-Chair of the Nagoya Protocol negotiations, and an ethicist who analyzed the major challenges of this historic agreement. With no precedent in the benefit sharing world, the agreement stands as a concrete example of the 'art of the possible.' Although the rooibos case is unique in a number of aspects, the experience offers many transferable insights, including: patience; incrementalism; honesty; trust; genuine dialogue; strong legal support; a shared recognition that a fair, win-win deal is possible; government leadership; and unity amongst indigenous peoples. Such ingredients of success can apply well beyond southern Africa.

Interspecies Relations and Agrarian Worlds

Recent years have witnessed burgeoning interest in interspecies relations and multispecies ethnography. This review explores what such perspectives bring to long-standing anthropological attention to agrarian worlds. Considering why so much recent scholarship only minimally engages with longer disciplinary traditions found within ecological and environmental anthropology and ethnobotany, the review examines continuities and discontinuities across these different modes of attending to interspecies relationships. From here, it explores how contemporary scholarship renews anthropological attention to questions of domestication, relatedness, agency, and personhood and how it charts new ground by engaging theories of biopolitics, biocapital, biosemiotics, and plant ontologies. While noting that recent work has distinctive theoretical preoccupations, the review concludes by suggesting that fruitful possibilities lie in working with, and across, established and emergent anthropologies of the agrarian.