Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Does the food sovereignty of indigenous Ovazemba communities constitute a local solution to a global challenge?

University of Hohenheim, Dept. Agricultural and Food Policy, Germany

Abstract

Background: Food sovereignty is a solution to global food crises and a resilient strategy to food policy globalisation in Indigenous communities. However, its empirical traceability is questioned, and 'sovereignty' is criticised as vague, requiring locally based solutions for equitable transition.
Objective: Based on the food sovereignty framework, this paper offers a solid understanding of culture-based principles of food sovereignty, local food systems sustainability, and how Ovazemba's resilient mechanisms promote food security given overlapping crises, including climate change, reversed trade liberalisation by Ukraine-Russia conflicts, and now the USA tariffs and food aid cuts.
Design: 60 key informants knowledgeable in culture-based food systems from 8 Ovazemba communities in Namibia’s countryside were interviewed between January and June 2024. A semi-structured questionnaire guided the face-to-face interviews. A convergent parallel design investigated the frequencies of culturally informed practices and food consumption patterns.
Results: Despite external stressors, including climate change and marginalisation within global food and nutrition systems, Ovazemba demonstrated a strong capacity to adapt and achieve food security without reliance on external food sources. Grain surpluses are stored for up to three consecutive years without cultivation. Their adaptive capacity is centred on five culture-based principles of food sovereignty. These principles, rooted in ‘humanism’ and coexistence with nature, include Indigenous knowledge and ancestral wisdom, farming gender roles, manual and biological food production practices, food sharing initiatives, and biodiversity conservation. Ovazemba's perception lacks nutrient-deficient foods, limiting the use and measurement of the household Vulnerability to Food Insecurity Index. However, this study provides valuable insights contrary to and consistent with existing studies on food sovereignty and contributes to scientific discourse on achieving sustainable food security.
Conclusions: Food sovereignty can be achieved using locally based, culture-led principles, suggesting Ovazemba’s adaptive capacity to be replicated in other communities as an alternative solution for global populations facing food insecurity.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity, food autonomy, food security, globalisation, indigenous people, nutrition, staple food

Contact Address: Gideon Mawenge, University of Hohenheim, Dept. Agricultural and Food Policy, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: gideon.mawengeuni-hohenheim.de