Science writer Leonie Joubert looks at food a little differently to most of us. In a number of publications over the last five years, Joubert has argued that our understanding of concepts like hunger, food security and nutrition is often a bit, well, nutty. From smug metropolitans who think obesity is a sign that people […]

Filling the food gap in African cities isn’t about making sure there are more calories in circulation, but about understanding how poverty expresses itself through people’s relationship with food. If we don’t tackle the social, economic, political and geographic forces that shape people’s food choices, our cities will continue to leave many of our poorer […]

With its engaging narrative style and striking images, Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks translates the fascinating findings of the CUP project into a digestible read accessible to an audience well beyond the borders of academia. One of the most challenging aspects of conducting academic studies is translating crucial findings for a wider audience. With the launch […]

HOW DO THE CITIES WE LIVE IN SHAPE WHAT WE EAT? This question is central to a new book, Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks: Running our Cities to Fill the Food Gap, by Leonie Joubert with Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson published by the African Centre for Cities. (more…)

Owners of small shops in South Africa – in most cases foreigners – have been accused of stocking counterfeit food and food that’s past its sell-by date. The issue has been caught up in xenophobic violence, with shop owners targeted by South Africans . There is very little hard data about what’s referred to as […]

As Africa urbanises and the focus of poverty shifts to urban centres, there is an imperative to address poverty in African cities. This is particularly the case in smaller cities, which are often the most rapidly urbanising, but the least able to cope with this growth. This book, a research output from the Consuming Urban […]

ABSTRACT The understanding of food security has seen major shifts since the original conceptualisations of the challenge. These changes in understanding have been accompanied by different food security measurement approaches. (more…)

In sub-Saharan Africa, the food system impacts on a number of urban development issues such as poverty, unemployment and poor health. Informal traders meet the food needs of many poor urban households. However, supermarket chains are changing this, demanding particular policy and planning responses, writes Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson in their latest paper for Nature, […]

ACC’s Jane Battersby is among the new members of the Global Nutrition Report‘s Independent Expert Group (IEG). The IEG members were selected to bring the right mix of expertise and fresh perspectives to the Global Nurtrition Report in 2018 and beyond. The IEG as a whole represents individual members’ expertise in research, programming, data and […]

The South African, and wider African, food system is undergoing a rapid transformation, with an associated transformation in nutrition. (more…)

African Centre for Cities Senior Researcher, Dr Jane Battersby was honoured as the 2017 laureate of the Premio Daniel Carasso at a ceremony in Valencia, Spain on 18 May. The international prize, first presented in 2012 by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation is awarded every two years in recognition of outstanding scientific research into […]

Food is fundamental not only to well-being, but to our social and economic lives. Despite this, one of the biggest challenges facing many people in cities all over the world today is hunger. As cities rapidly urbanise, different pressures are placed on the food system which has resulted in the least nutritious food being the […]