Dr Sifiso Ntombela who completed his PhD in Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria in 2019, participated and curated a number of UNFSS Dialogues over the last few months as a representative of NAMC. The main mission of NAMC is to provide agricultural marketing advisory services to key stakeholders. NAMC provides intelligence research to enable policymakers to design and implement solutions.

Dr Ntombela curated the “Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All and Building Resilience to Vulnerabilities, Shocks and Stresses” dialogue that took place on the 6^th of July 2021. He also participated in the “Leveraging Public-Private Partnerships Towards Scaling Up Food Systems Solutions in South Africa During and Beyond Covid-19” that took place on the 22^nd of July 2021, where he spoke about the role of youth in the transformation of South Africa’s food system. For Dr Ntombela, the dialogues provided “the platform necessary to harvest solutions and strategies from diverse stakeholders that attended the dialogues”. Several proposals that came out of these dialogues will inform the South African position that will be presented at the Summit later this year, which centres on the principle of “leveraging public-private partnerships towards scaling up food system solutions in South Africa”.

The summit dialogues and pre-summit event had a number of important messages and for Dr Ntombela, the main message of the pre-summit events is that “There is the need to leverage on public-private-academia partnerships to upscale the food system in the country. The importance of recognizing the co-existence of smallholder and large farmers and enterprises in building a sustainable and competitive food system. The urgent need to not only focus on the availability, affordability and access to food, but to also address the need to safe and nutritious food to all citizens.”

Dr Ntombela says that the biggest problem in the South Africa’s food system is that the system is exclusive, underpinned by “skewed ownership patterns of natural resources and high barriers to entry for smallholders and new farmers”. Public-private-academia partnerships are important for finding practical solutions to improve the food system.  This problem was echoed throughout the food system dialogues that saw politicians engage with the pubic and private sector as well as researchers such as Prof Sheryl Hendriks, to  explore and launch meaningful actions that will transform the food system in South Africa. According to Minister of Agriculture, Land reform and Rural development, Thoko Didiza, these dialogues present an important opportunity for all stakeholders to be heard, and to commit to ensuring implementation of solutions.

The experience of participating in these dialogues was an honour for Dr Ntombela and he is looking forward to seeing government take the necessary action to ensure food security for all. Dr Ntombela says that these dialogues and the UN Food Systems Summit pre-summit “reflected the real problems within our food system that will require all of us to work together”. As a representative of NAMC, Dr Ntombela says “NAMC will continue to provide intelligence research to enable policymakers and industry captains to design and implement practical solutions and policies that will upscale the food system.”

While many South Africans remain food insecure, the commitment to transformation by people such as Dr Ntombela gives us hope for a better tomorrow.