Cape Talk

Animals often play a spiritual and religious role. So, talk to us about what you found to be the impact of livestock eating plastic, passing away because they cannot digest plastic, and how this impacted the farmers and their families. Yeah, you know, so for a smallholder farmer, Levoka are actually not simply an animal. Remember, in our local areas, in our rural areas, they provide food.

So in some instances they they they sell these cows for income. Uh they also provide a lot of financial securities uh for for many families. So a cow can be a a very significant uh household asset. In our rural setting when we have funerals, you know, when we have weddings, we often think of kite c kettles to uh to have meat and feed our people in the communities. And in some instances kettles are used as a form of uh payment for lowola.

Prices, that is how our rural setup is structured. So, when you lose one animal, you are actually potentially losing an asset that could have supported your household, it could have paid school fees for your children, it could have provided food and generated income. So, it's a livelihood asset. So, that's why we describe these plastic pollution as a more environmental problem and it becomes a

Livelihood problem when this environmental pollution, for example, plastics are causing loss of animals or livestock that this family depends on. So I think it's one of the issues that is really a challenge to our communities. The research that you did, Doctor, also found that part of the challenge was a failure of basic services and that also farmers, the farmers that you interviewed, couldn't