Climate adaptation, geopolitics, and structural exclusion in South African agriculture

Abstract

Southern African agriculture stands at a critical intersection of accelerating climate risk and entrenched structural inequality. While climate change increasingly shapes global research and policy agendas, other intersecting forces—such as the divide between large-scale commercial agriculture and smallholder farming, the erasure of indigenous knowledge systems, and persistent gender disparities—remain marginalised. These exclusions are not peripheral; they are embedded in how knowledge, technologies, and resources are produced and distributed. Drawing on professional experience and recent scholarship—including a newly released volume on climate uncertainty—this opinion piece critically examines the influence of geopolitical hierarchies and artificial intelligence in shaping agricultural futures. It argues that without deliberate inclusion of African expertise and field-based soil–crop knowledge, climate-smart interventions may deepen rather than reduce existing inequities. This opinion piece argues for an African-centred, intersectional approach to resilience—integrating climate adaptation with justice for marginalised farmers and the soils they tend.