Land Governance and Responsible Value Chains in the South African Wine Industry (WINELAND)

Growing and producing wine is socially and environmentally complex. In South Africa’s Western Cape, many of these challenges are seen. Issues of environmental sustainability, the expansion of towns into rural areas, historical inequalities and uneven labour relations are all present. And they all intersect with how land is used and owned, and the impacts this has on communities and societies. Yet these kinds of issues also transcend the Western Cape. With a greater global focus on sustainability, buyers and consumers are increasingly concerned that the wine they drink is not exacerbating negative socio-environmental outcomes. This project (WINELAND) explores the impacts of land-use and farming practices in the South African wine industry on growers and communities in the Western Cape, and how these practices can and are being changed by different social and environmental sustainability demands in the global wine sector. WINELAND is a collaborative project with joint funding from the Research Council of Norway and the National Research Foundation, South Africa. The project is jointly led by PRIO in Norway and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The project also includes collaboration with research partners from the Centre of Development and the Environment in Norway and partners Vinmonopolet and Fairtrade Norway (Norway) and WIETA (South Africa). Our aim is to study how different land use practices can help to improve social and environmental challenges, and how global wine retailers can guide producers to improve their social and environmental impacts. We further analyse the sustainability requirements of retailers and buyers in global wine markets, to understand how wine growers respond to these and the local outcomes they shape. By doing so, we develop new insights about how producers, retailers and consumers can make more sustainable and responsible choices when buying and drinking wine from complex regions such as the Western Cape.

Wine producing regions in South Africa’s Western Cape are areas under stress. Here, environmental sustainability, urban expansion, labour relations and historical marginalization all intersect with land related tensions (e.g. employment, labour, resource use) . Yet they also transcend their local context, shaped by the differing understandings of sustainability and pressures from global value chains. With consumers increasingly concerned that the wine they drink is not exacerbating negative socio-environmental outcomes, we are guided by the question: How do land-related stresses impact growers and communities in the Western Cape and how can industry stakeholders improve social and environmental impact within global value chains? WINELAND unites world-leading scholars with industry and advocacy groups in Norway and South Africa to drive interdisciplinary research across sustainability, agrarian studies, development, political science and business spaces. We study how land governance may address social and environmental challenges, and the ways in which changing land use patterns shape these dynamics. We extend the research frontier on sustainability demands from retailers and buyers in global markets, identifying how wine growers internalize these demands and the local outcomes they shape. We lead new scholarship and guidance on responsible procurement from complex producer regions, matching this with a strong action plan to ensure stakeholder engagement. We deliver 6 top-level academic articles, build capacity through PhD and postdoctoral positions, promote dialogue through multi-stakeholder workshops and industry roundtables and deliver a set of guidelines for social impact in complex wine regions at a closing event. Our SDG novel approach places communities, workers, producers and industry stakeholders as equal players, generating knowledge to support SDGs and sustainable and equitable social and environmental outcomes in wine growing regions and beyond.