This chapter challenges the myth that rural communities lack racial diversity and that “rural” is synonymous with “white.” The chapter addresses in particular the misconception that, where rural regions do overrepresent white people, there is something natural or innate about the connection between rurality and whiteness. The chapter uses a critical-legal lens to examine the history and modern conditions associated with rural landownership and livelihoods. This analysis helps illustrate, in the words of Jess Shoemaker, “how rural landscapes got so white.” Certain experiences of the Gullah-Geechee people of South Carolina offer a case study for exploring heirs’ property, racial discrimination, and other mechanisms used to contribute to rural racial minorities’ land dispossession. The discussion demonstrates how property law, federal interventions, and other areas of law have facilitated the construction of rural regions as disproportionately white and racially stratified. Once again, the analysis reveals how rural America is a manmade project of public creation, rather than the product of benign or natural forces.

‘Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.’1 So begins Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa, a book in which he appeals against one of the most consequential pieces of legislation passed by the new Union of South Africa after its establishment in 1910. The Natives Land Act of 1913 restricted ownership of land by black South Africans to a small fraction of the available agricultural land of the country. It decreed that whites and blacks were not allowed to buy land from each other. And although the Act did not have an immediate impact, as many, including Plaatje, had thought it would, it began a process of legislative segregation that would ultimately culminate in Grand Apartheid – the division of South Africa into white and black territories or ‘homelands’ – half a century later.

By providing for civil/political rights alongside a plethora of social/economic rights, the 1996 Constitution signified a commitment and a bold statement to making this dream a reality. Yet, to the millions who are still confronted with endemic hunger, the constitutionally guaranteed rights remain a pipedream. This chapter observes that the state’s intervention to address poverty and food insecurity has mainly been through policy actions. Also, the state has enacted a plethora of sectorial legislations which in one way or another are merely related to food production rather than access or distribution. These interventions, even though somewhat well crafted and commendable, have been unable to adequately tackle the issue. Policies have, until recently not only been poorly operationalised and uncoordinated, but also fragmented. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of, or poor, communication between relevant government departments responsible for food security. It is against this backdrop that the chapter seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of these problems and interrogate possible remedies for addressing these burning issues.