Food production and Afrikan metaphysical thought in the time of polycrisis

Abstract

Increasingly, societies are becoming aware of the ecological impact of the industrial agricultural complex (IAC) and how it contributes to the deepening context of a polycrisis. However, its impact, and by extension, our impact on the soil microbiome in particular has received scarce attention in the field of environmental ethics, and even less so from an African thought perspective. As such, this article explores the question: how could we justify and then defend the moral value of microcosmic life in relation to other-than-human life from an African thought perspective? In order to do so, it will advance a framework for contemplating the problem of microcosmic harm, analyse two approaches for understanding our relatedness to the world in the literature on African environmentalism (complex relationism in the work of Mogobe Ramose and Afrispiritual relationism in the work of Laurenti Magesa), develop an account for understanding the moral status of microcosmic life between the two approaches, and use this account to respond to the problem of microcosmic harm. Here, it will be argued that an obligation to abandon our current IAC food system in favour of transitioning to an agroecological food system exists and that fulfilling this obligation offers African societies an opportunity for both righting historical injustices and preventing future ones. In doing so, this article proposes a link between how systems of food production are organised and how systems of subjectification are organised, or, that we are how we grow what we eat.