Based in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, the University of Cape Town’s Bio-economy SARChI Chair is a SKI founding partner. The Chair, through Professor Rachel Wynberg and a team of postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows, brings research and collaborations linked to seed, knowledge, and agroecology; policy expertise; and a track record of working on issues relating to traditional knowledge, intellectual property, biodiversity, and social justice. Recent and current research focuses on the political economy of small-scale  farming in Lesotho;local foodways and links to food sovereignty; impacts of agrichemical use in the South African wheat industry; realising farmers’ rights in southern Africa; intersections of farmers’ rights and digital sequence information; exploring the political ecology of net zero and nature-based solutions; changing foodways in the Cederberg Mountains; and an investigation into the networks associated with the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA). Past projects have centred on the resilience of local seed systems; links between seed and food security; implications of new genetic technologies for small-holder farmers; and the social-ecological relationships within different systems of maize Agri/culture.

Central foci of the Chair are to bridge the gap between theory and the real world of environmental, inequality, and poverty challenges, and to bring critical perspectives with regard to the social and environmental dimensions of the bio-economy.