Making the kitchen longer

As food prices soar, Joburg communities are reclaiming their power, building connections, and planting seeds for a just and sustainable system

- Raeesah Chandlay

At a community art studio in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, a small group of local farmers, food entrepreneurs, artists and activists gathered for a special event.

It was the first in a series of events that would bring together people across the city — from various backgrounds — to explore individual and collective relationships with food and roles within the food system.

In this wealthiest city in Africa, food insecurity affects over 2 million people, while megacorps rule the country's food industry.

And, with food inflation on the rise, grocery bills are soaring throughout South Africa, raising many questions about the nation's reliance on the mainstream industrial food system, especially in the context of increasing unemployment, geopolitical instability and the climate crisis.

Aiming to explore this notion, an informal collective embarked on an initiative called the LongKitchen.

Funded by Food & Trees for Africa, the LongKitchen is a series of events in which people from various areas and different spheres of the community come together for guided walks in the city centre, purchasing food from street traders, collaborating to eat a shared meal and sharing stories of their lived experiences, endeavours and challenges.

Over the course of the project, these events have evolved, introducing new elements with each iteration — from harvesting fresh vegetables at a thriving urban farm in Soweto to Brixton's community cookout, where residents came together to prepare food grown in their immediate surroundings, engaging in conversation about community cohesion and local-level food resilience.

In a deep dive into this initiative, one LongKitchen participant, Louise Denysschen Greeff, took a special interest in the process and led interviews with several other participants from across these spheres, gathering their stories and highlighting the connections between them.