James Machobane, Environmental Justice and the Problem of Sustainable Farming in Lesotho, Southern Africa

This talk examines the life and work of James Machobane, a visionary farmer who in the 1950s sought environmental justice by promoting ecologically sustainable agriculture to improve food systems in Lesotho. Historical investigations of Machobane’s motivations, innovations and objectives show the possibilities and problems of combatting, through agricultural reform, the systemic injustices created by dispossession, colonialism and the political-economy of migrant labour.

Chris Conz is a lecturer in African history at Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA. He earned his Ph.D. from Boston University in 2017. Prior to Ph.D. studies, Chris taught high school history and then taught in rural Lesotho for two years. In his research Dr. Conz draws on his linguistic and social background in Lesotho by blending archival work with oral histories and rural fieldwork. This approach has produced focused studies that speak to his broader interests in southern Africa, environmental and agricultural history, knowledge systems, and development. In 2017-2018, Chris was a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University’s School of Nutrition Science and Policy under an international initiative called Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA). He has published articles in Environment and History and Agricultural History. Most recently, Conz published an article in the Journal of Southern African Studies based on his postdoctoral research, called “(Un)Cultivating the Disease of Maize: Pellagra, Policy, and Nutrition Practice in Lesotho, c. 1933-1963.” He is currently working on a book project tentatively titled Environmental Sciences in a Small Place.