How to address South Africa’s food security crisis despite government policies

SOUTH Africa's food security is getting worse, despite the government spending billions to try to stop hunger levels rising. It is a losing battle, because the government strategy is flawed.

- FRANCOIS BAIRD

Instead of policies that would reduce the number of poor people, it is throwing huge resources at efforts to make an increasing number of poor people less hungry.

The result is that food security surveys regularly show that the number of hungry people is rising, and every quarterly jobs report shows that, even when percentages improve slightly, the actual number of unemployed people is going up.

One of the world’s highest unemployment rates results in high levels of poverty, hunger and starving children. Even though South Africa is food secure at national level, producing enough to export, the situation at household level is getting worse, not better. Millions and millions of South Africans are going hungry because they cannot afford food that is available.

At a recent social justice summit, with themes of food security and peace, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that 15 million to 16 million South Africans had inadequate or severely inadequate access to food.

He then proudly listed government efforts to reduce hunger and improve food security. These included school feeding schemes and community nutritional programmes, as well as social grants, free basic services, free basic and tertiary education and free primary healthcare to free up money in households to buy food.

He boasted that, in South Africa, the social wage accounts for approximately 60% on spending by government before interest payments.