Rirhandzu Marivate, a champion for urban food systems using regenerative farming

As programmes manager at SA Urban Food & Farming Trust (SAUFFT), Rirhandzu Marivate (37) operates under a simple philosophy: “Working with food as if people and planet matter.” A self-described socio-ecologist and regenerative food systems practitioner, Marivate focuses on the intersection of human relationships, agriculture and the environment. Her work centres on implementing restorative farming practices while embedding justice and equity into sustainable food systems.

Marivate also embraces the title of agroecologist, a role she sees as inherently intersectional. For her, agroecology isn't just about sustainable farming — it’s a vehicle for advancing climate and racial justice.

Yet, as she told Daily Maverick, to fully grasp how these titles translate into her daily motto, one has to look back at the journey that shaped her life.

Shaping her interests

Marivate spent her childhood in Ga-Rankuwa, Pretoria, where her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents farmed in their spare time. Despite this, Marivate was never interested in agriculture and food systems as a child. Her focus was on fauna and flora, and her ambition was to become a zoologist. 

From 2007 to 2009, she pursued her undergraduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, majoring in ecology and geology. In 2010, she gained an honours degree in ethno-ecology, focusing on how people in rural areas manage natural resources. In 2021 at Stellenbosch University, she completed a postgraduate diploma in Sustainable Development and Planning, with a focus on food systems. 

Impacting nature

From 2015 to 2019, Marivate worked at the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) as an environmental scientist, focusing on environmental and sustainability assessment work beyond the rural space, extending into peri-urban and urban spaces. She looked at how people and developments impacted nature and how people could reduce that impact.

She recalls an interesting project funded by the Department of Environmental Affairs (the current Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, or DFFE): it was about strategising how environmental services could be freely accessible to disadvantaged communities as per the Constitution. In the span of five years, Marivate engaged with communities all over South Africa (SA) and helped them to receive their environmental authorisation to initiate their projects. She also helped bring awareness to the environmental legislation needed for small-scale developers who weren’t aware of this important requirement.  

“I found myself very much interested in wanting to always work with disadvantaged people and getting them to also be able to participate in our society and economy through an environmental lens,” she says on her work at the CSIR.

From this programme, she realised that a lot of people want to develop and build their livelihoods through agriculture. And while at the CSIR, Marivate developed an awareness that people understand nature through food and farming, resulting in her combining her love for nature with other people’s understanding of it. 

She then left the CSIR to work at the Sustainability Institute (SI) until 2023, where she established a regenerative farm. She’d gained a greater understanding of the limitations of environmental legislation – it’s geared towards bigger commercial developments and can be detrimental red tape for smaller farms and developers with fewer financial resources. Marivate believes that environmental policy should be changed to be more flexible and accessible for small-scale developers.

She feels that current agricultural and environmental policies in SA are quite conventional and extractive, and sees an opportunity for enhancing positive impact through regenerative farming practices that help restore and enhance nature. Marivate also left the CSIR because she felt that research needed to be grounded by “on-the-ground” reality.

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Social justice projects with Woolworths

Marivate spearheaded and established Living Soils Community Learning Farm at the SI, a partnership project between Woolworths, Spier and the SI. She was able to provide a successful proof of concept, which Woolworths incorporated into their newly formed Community Inclusive Justice Initiative (CIJI) as one of their flagship projects. The farms grew food for the community. 

The project used small-scale farms, where young farmers were trained in and used regenerative farming practices. The project also aimed to tackle socio-economic issues by ensuring better working conditions and more suitable wages for farm workers, introducing black communities, women and youth to commercial regenerative agriculture.

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Marivate is now in her third year with SAUFFT. The organisation’s role is to empower urban food systems actors, and as a result, contribute to community resilience. They work with marginalised urban communities and have various projects which include working with urban farmers through the Agrihub initiatives, and informal food traders in Cape Town’s townships, strengthening the collective agency of these food actors. Among their projects and programmes, they provide technical training, capacity support, extension support and communal infrastructure to farmers.

SAUFFT also has their own farm, Oranjezicht City Farm, which supports the Agrihubs, while an events programme, Food Indaba, acts as a platform for food systems advocacy. 

In 2021, Mail & Guardian named Marivate a Green Futurist in its Greening the Future awards. Two years later, she was honoured as a Protea of the Valley by Valcare for her work in the Cape Winelands. While she earned both these titles for her work in regenerative agriculture and environmental work, she does not credit these as her biggest achievements. 

Looking towards the future 

Marivate says that although she isn’t naturally inclined to talk about her achievements, she feels a responsibility to be a soapbox for other black women.

“I learned that it’s important to develop and grow my platform to be able to talk about this important work and encourage others to take action.

“The importance of being a black woman, to encourage those who can identify themselves in me and to be able to be a soapbox for them, is an important responsibility that I am taking more seriously,” she says. 

On a personal level, Marivate’s greatest achievements include her parents and family’s pride and support of her work. That, and having young women she’s supported through the Living Soils Project approach her to say that she’s left a huge impression on them. And then watching them confidently work in agriculture. 

Marivate is proud of being selected for the Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2022. As a Mandela Washington Fellow, she completed her studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, one of the world’s leading agricultural universities. This opportunity helped her build connections and to make an impact beyond SA. 

She says the Leading African Women in Food Fellowship last year broadened her understanding and network in African food systems. It allowed her to visit Senegal and attend the African Food Systems Forum. The Fellowship recognised the work African women were doing to drive food and agriculture throughout Africa. 

Another massive achievement is to have the recognition of “juggernauts” and experts in food systems and ecology. More recently, she has been part of international food systems platforms such as the Africa-Europe Cluster of Research Excellence (Food Environment Action for the Promotion of Health), and the Urban Future of Food discovery programme team under the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Marivate strives to take her work further on the international stage. She dreams of being a thought leader and of building an environmentally minded programme with the farming trust that goes beyond SA and extends across Africa. 

She also hopes to get more sleep... but admits that she cannot sleep until she “gets things done”. DM