Zayaan Khan opens seed libraries to promote food justice in South Africa

Researcher and artist Zayaan Khan established Seed Biblioteek in 2015 to promote food justice and seed accessibility in Cape Town, South Africa.

Khan began her activism through the Surplus People Project, where she advocated for agrarian reform and provided agroecological training to small-scale farmers. Her work focuses on the belief that the current food system unfairly distributes land and resources, leading to hunger even among those who produce food.

Khan also helped establish the Slow Food Youth Network South Africa between 2013 and 2016. This network connected young people interested in food as a means of health and wealth. During this period, Khan traveled to Italy to attend the Terra Madre Salone del Gusto festival, where she observed indigenous people from around the world discussing food politics and solutions to communal struggles.

The first Seed Biblioteek opened at Bertha House in Mowbray, while a second location opened at Muizenberg Commons in 2025. These libraries allow the public to exchange seeds, compost, and publications. Khan views these spaces as vital for community connection and for preserving seed culture against restrictive national laws. She argues that indigenous and traditional farming practices should be the standard rather than the current state-led system.

Khan incorporates her focus on food and seeds into her art, which includes sculptures and installations. Her recent work explores the concept of polycrisis through food, such as an edible Pan-African graveyard she created to honor Mozambicans killed in South Africa. She uses seeds in her art to represent the spectrum of life and death.