An African view: Agriculture & Spirituality

African people were uprooted from their long-standing indigenous agricultural way of life which involved maintaining a harmonious relationship between communities, nature, and traditional religious practices. These practices involved ceremonies, festivals, and rituals in alignment with the cycles of the seasons. Embodied, enacted, and reinforced in these traditions were sacred values communicated between communities and mother earth. The community rituals often included agricultural rituals designed to persuade the gods and ancestors to deliver rains, and successful harvests, and to guarantee healthy livestock. Through colonisation and urbanisation, African people were removed from their way of life, adversely affecting their ability to nurture and protect natural resources in order to ensure food production and sustainability at a local level.

In this conversation with Dr Pama, we aim to gather insight into how the abandonment of African traditional religious practices among Africans has negatively impacted our abilities to connect with the earth, nurturing a symbiosis between communities, nature, and God. Dr Bonile Pama, known to many as Baba Songindaba, is an agricultural economist and a business strategist by training with an MSc Agric, MBL and PhD degrees.