Enabling social learning to stimulate value creation towards a circular economy: the case of the Food for Us food redistribution mobile application development process

Abstract

This M.Ed. study investigates the social learning enabled by a food redistribution mobile application (app) project, Food for Us, in the Raymond Mhlaba municipality in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Over an 18 month period, the Food for Us mobile app innovation project was piloted in two case study sites, Worcester, Western Cape, and the Raymond Mhlaba municipality, Eastern Cape, in South Africa, the latter being the focus of this study. In South Africa, one-third of the food produced for consumption is wasted; paradoxically, 26% of all households' experience hunger. Food surplus occurs in many contexts, including communities of emerging small scale farmers, many of which are not able to find markets for their produce, resulting in wastage. In a time of mobile technology expansion, the wide infiltration of Internet-enabled smartphones into diverse communities has increased dramatically with the uptake of mobile apps being a key area of interest amongst environmental educators. The Food for Us app project aims to address the challenges of food insecurity and market access for smallscale farmers by creating an innovative technological solution in the form of a mobile app. This research project aimed to investigate the social learning that was enabled within the communities of practice that utilised and interacted with the Food for Us mobile app and Food for Us project support systems. Data was collected through a series of surveys, interviews and workshops and was analysed using Wenger, Trayner and de Laat's (2011) Value Creation Framework. The Food for Us app pilot was not successful in the way that was originally anticipated by the Food for Us team; however, there were important social learning findings that emerged from the project which opened up a new way of looking at technological innovation in the supply chains with the small scale farming contexts. The key findings that emerged from this study indicated that technological innovation on its own is not effective in enabling deep social learning. When facilitated and supported by other networked social learning systems (such as WhatsApp group, workshops and course meetings), however, boundary crossing, intergenerational learning and network building emerged as important forms of value creation that can be enabled. Through the analysis it was noted that inhibiting factors such as app trial design, lack of critical mass participation and continued application software challenges, affected the development of value. These inhibiting factors informed recommendations around the need to develop strong social networked systems around technologically innovative solutions to promote the realisation of transformative value.