A member of EarthLore Foundation, Mashudu joined the African Earth Jurisprudence Collective having completed the Trainings for Transformation. Below she shares more about EarthLore’s work to revitalise food sovereignty across South Africa and Zimbabwe, challenged by climate change, the legacy of colonialism and agribusiness. This interview was originally published in Sahara’s Journal on International Women’s Day 2025.

My parents moved closer to job opportunities and schools, so I was born and bred in urban areas in Venda, Limpopo, South Africa. I grew up amid the vibrancy that urban life offers, but I always felt a strong connection with the rich traditions of Venda, which I experienced during school holidays when we would visit my grandfather’s village, Mazwimba. Life in a rural village community has an intimacy and energy that one does not find in town.

I was used to getting food from supermarkets but, in Mazwimba, I had the opportunity to taste wild fruits, vegetables, and traditional recipes for the first time. I also experienced the river and mountains surrounding the village where these foods had thrived for generations. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I’ve come to realise how influential these simple, beautiful days spent in Mazwimba were. They taught me about connection, and have shaped how I view the world today.

When I was 19, I was passionate about traditional dance and came across the Mupo Foundation, now EarthLore Foundation: an organisation dedicated to helping indigenous communities revive their customs, seed, food, and knowledge through active participation. I became deeply passionate about advocating for indigenous practices, and also began to recall my childhood experiences by noticing the stark difference between the food I bought from shops and the food I ate when visiting elders.

This fascination led me to return to my roots in Mazwimba village, in 2017, when I was 29. Through my visits and discussions with women elders in the village, I learned that many of the traditional seeds had already been lost. But I was able to share my experiences with EarthLore and we began to both revive their traditional seed and also conserve the mountains, forests and rivers surrounding us, so that wild food and medicines could continue to be grown by Mother Earth.

With the community’s enthusiasm and commitment, we were able to experiment with various seeds and cultivation techniques. Our goal was to find sustainable methods that not only yielded a good harvest but also preserved the delicate balance of the wetland ecosystem. This collaborative effort marked the start of a transformative journey in Mazwimba: increasing the cultural and ecological diversity to make the village resilient to climactic shocks.

The shortage of indigenous seeds and limited support systems are enormous challenges for rural women farmers: colonialism and all that followed buried so much. Non-profits have now taken the lead in establishing training spaces that encourage sharing and selling of traditional seeds but their work is often challenged by government agencies, trying to find reasons to close them down. At EarthLore, we encourage communities to hold their own seed fairs where they can exchange seed and increase diversity across regions.

Agribusiness-driven policies push commercial seeds and genetically-modified organisms, as well as the associated chemicals that farmers have to buy, trapping them in the cash economy while destroying their soils, contaminating water sources and killing the wider landscape. Governments support this by initially distributing free GMOs and chemicals to rural farmers until they are locked into the system.Many rural farmers are intimidated, especially women.

Iniquitous seed laws in several African countries even forbid the production, exchange, or sale of traditional seeds: people are arrested and viewed as criminals simply for following practices that are centuries old. Many rural farmers are intimidated, especially women.

When I first returned to Mazwimba, widowed and with my son, the Venda leadership was dominated by men who tended to look down on us, particularly young, single women like me! The Chief had a reputation for being unpredictable, but nevertheless gave me permission to organise the Seed and Food Fair I had gone to him with an idea for.

Less than a year later, when he opened the hugely successful event, he openly admitted his scepticism. The crowds included dignitaries, government officials from a local, provincial and national level, and visiting farmers from Zimbabwe, as well as from KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa.

It was such a positive occasion that we ran the festival again in 2024, and added a seed blessing ritual that included visiting farmers. They were able to take a handful of the blessed seeds to plant and share when they got home, connecting the community in Mazwimba with allies across the continent. And now, Mazwimba has a new Heritage Learning Centre – officially opened by the very same Chief – constructed by the community as “a home for seed”. The centre serves as a hub for agroecology training and intergenerational learning.

Make Skulpad’s garden is another success story. She lives in a Julius Mkhonto community, Mpumalanga, and together with other women has utilised available land at the local school. They have transformed it into a flourishing garden.

This not only provides fresh produce for their families but also fosters a strong sense of empowerment. Surplus produce is sold, gaining them financial independence, and vegetables are donated to the school once a month to boost children’s nutrition and connect them with traditional food. Together these farmers have created a sustainable garden that benefits the entire neighbourhood.

In 2017, Make Skulpad heard about EarthLore working in a nearby area and was keen to join our training. As a result, all of the Julius Mkhonto farmers have stopped using chemicals, instead utilising liquid animal manure to enrich the soil. In 2019, they organised their own seed and food fair with our support. When people from other communities brought lost seeds to share, they could reintroduce and cultivate crop varieties that had been absent for years. Make Skulpad said she was delighted to see Sorghum, Umngomeni (a mung bean) and Amatapane (a small potato) again. She has also managed to plant some traditional Okra in her garden that came from wild seed, called Igusha. This just shows has important it is to protect not only diverse human cultures, and the crops they have cultivated over millennia, but also our wild kin.

Creating change at a grassroots level gives farmers the confidence to share their success. This is how potent work on the ground can influence significant policy change. Engaging from a position of strength, with pride in who they are, is far more effective than engaging in discussions using the dominant language of agribusiness.

If global organisations, policymakers, and individuals could support the attendance of more women farmers at decision-making gatherings, and assist with documentation and the circulation of what is being discussed, it would help amplify this change further. Laws should not be enacted without the input of women who have directly observed and understood their local ecosystems with great attentiveness.

Whenever we have to battle against against mining companies, tourism operators and other land grabbers, the main strength of farmers is that they are not alone. They come from united communities, firmly rooted in their traditional territories, as part of a growing movement who are fighting for both their heritage and their future.

There is a significant gender imbalance in leadership roles because of industrial agriculture. Men were promoted because they were interested in planting cash crops, jumping on the capitalist bandwagon brought here by colonialism. Women – traditionally our food producers – were discredited. Their seeds were deprecatingly referred to as “Gogos’ seeds”: the seed of the grandmothers. These were subsequently discarded and replaced with hybrid seeds.

It will take some time for the current male-dominated governance structures to recover from the influence of colonialism. The current ‘traditional’ structures that colonists installed include government-paid indunas (village headmen/chiefs) and councillors. Most of them overlook the contribution of women, who play crucial roles in both spiritual and agricultural practices. The community governance is not supposed to be a politically elected body, but is spiritually guided and acknowledges the holistic view of the community. Traditionally women played a powerful role as spirit mediums who would advise the chief before he made any decision.

The process of reviving the true governance systems requires education: not formal education, but through connecting communities that are committed to reviving their traditions through learning exchanges, such as the ones that EarthLore supports. It is through fostering the revival of truly traditional governance systems that women are being respected and valued, together with everyone else in the community.

We need women’s wisdom now more than ever, facing a future of climatic uncertainty. Through dialogues with elders, I have learnt about their deep understanding of diversity. Their consistent connection with the land has enabled them to cultivate a huge variety of crops that sustain physical health and spiritual practices, with elders observing natural indicators and making informed decisions about planting and harvesting to ensure a bountiful yield. This knowledge has been passed down through generations, making women indispensable stewards of Earth’s ecosystems.

It is essential to acknowledge the role women play in the fabric of society. Currently, many women in Africa are overburdened by a large proportion of domestic work that is not valued. Caring for children, the sick and the elderly, cooking for the family, cleaning, fetching water, collecting firewood: this is all invisible, including economically. The absence of support networks exacerbated by community fragmentation makes it challenging, if not impossible, for women to balance these responsibilities. 

Balance can be restored and work can be more equally and equitably distributed when appropriate traditional governance systems are revived. These build community cohesiveness, mutual respect and clarity on the reciprocal roles of all members of a community. They also encourage intergenerational learning and a deep appreciation of indigenous cultures.

I believe that supporting small scale farmers to produce their own food using resilient traditional seeds will ensure food sovereignty in the long term. We can get there by:

• Diversifying crops through seed and food fairs. By replacing hybrid and GMO maize with indigenous staples like millet and sorghum, farmers can improve yields because these varieties are adapted to the conditions here in Africa, which will only intensify with climate change. EarthLore has seen this change lives in all the farming communities we’ve accompanied across South Africa and Zimbabwe.

• In addition to diversifying through appropriate seed, soils that have been damaged by decades of chemical use need to be rebuilt with homemade compost that puts vital organic matter back into the soil.

• Farmers soon realise that they need to take responsibility for healing the wider landscape that has been eroded over the years through overgrazing and poor stormwater management. To help combat erosion, and to recharge the water table, farmers can dig contours and create swales to slow down the flow of water and store it in the ground.

• Part of intergenerational knowledge sharing involves educating youth about traditional food and the value of eating a wide variety of fresh home grown produce. It has become common for all food to come from shops. Elders and traditional healers also know about medicinal plants used to treat many ailments. This takes communities beyond food sovereignty to become increasingly sovereign over their holistic health and wellbeing.

• Finally, it is important to remember that seeds are not only food but are widely used in many African traditions to perform rituals linked to the seasonal cycles of agriculture. Restoring these ceremonies by restoring our seed can bind communities together again with joy, instilling pride in our indigenous identity.

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Read The Gaia Foundation’s report into the vital role that African women play in preserving biodiversity, using complex knowledge evolved from their intimate relationship with land, and understanding of a community’s nutritional needs. This lies at heart of food sovereignty, especially amidst a changing climate.