A Rural Community Perspective and Interpretation of Livelihoods and Food (in)Security 

This study explored what a rural community understands livelihood and food security at both household and community levels to mean using a mixed research methods that comprised of interviews with 100 households in rural communities in South Africa. The key livelihood concepts studied include life, lifestyle, living for the better, and decent living, whilst food security was interpreted as a kinship-based social security issue, propagated from a cultural perspective: 'food is not a commodity' but 'food is life' and 'life is not for sale'. Own-grown food was perceived as a mechanism for feeding the family, and to help and share with others. The author concluded that livelihood concepts capture the purpose of existence, value of life and the striving towards self-actualization. This is complemented by food security which is a combination of being able to feed one's self, the next person, and to share without expecting anything in return. The contextualization of food security interventions is fundamental before implementation.