Food Security as a Driver of Socio-Economic Development in South Africa
By Tshegofatso Putu and Safoora Sadek, on behalf of Gaby Shapiro Branch for the “ANC Today” National Weekly publication
Poverty, hunger, food insecurity, unemployment, and the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns are words that have become the order of the day in South Africa. These words are the subject of numerous debates and discussions which attempt to make sense of the recent upheaval during July 2021, in KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng Provinces. The common thread emerging within the analysis by organisations and individuals from all sectors of society is that the inadequate response to food security as a poverty reduction strategy is one of the main drivers of the societal frustration. This inadequate strategy on food security, being described as ‘a ticking time-bomb’, has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic and the recurring lockdown measures.
While our democratically elected ANC-led government has put into place policies and programmes to provide food security, this has not yet yielded the expected outcome of a food secure nation wherein no-one goes hungry. The significant increase in the number of civil society established food kitchens operating in our poor communities since the onset of the pandemic is a clear sign that our government needs to do more to provide long-term food security to our people. This long-term strategy must acknowledge the reality that food security is a multi-sectoral challenge affecting labour, agriculture, health, education, national security and economic development. While it may be argued that these inter-linkages, especially to economic development and national security, are far-fetched — the recent violent lootings suggest otherwise.
Food security trends in South Africa
Although the incidence of food insecurity in the country has declined since 2002, the 2020 Statistics South Africa General Household Survey highlights that 18.8% of South African households are food insecure. In the North West, Northern Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga, over 24% of households are food insecure and have inadequate and severely inadequate access to food security. This translates to more than 11 million people who do not have access to the requisite food with which to live a healthy and productive life.
It is understood that COVID-19 has increased the number of food insecure South Africans. This is because there are strong correlations between food security, job-security and income. The COVID-19 induced national lockdowns have led to job-losses, increased food prices, and generalised economic decline. These key drivers have placed many into a precarious situation where their access to food has been jeopardised. Recent research on the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant shows that 9,537,077 applications were received for the grant with 6 449 916 approved. The research shows that 93.28% of grant recipients (based on a representative sample of respondents) used the grant for buying food.
The responsibilities of ending hunger and maintaining food security seem to have been individualised and relegated to private households. However, maintaining food security is a community and governance-related issue. National economies grow sustainably when households have access to nutritious food and are able to feed their productivity. The productivity of human resources is an important aspect of economic value addition and is a key component in calculating metrics such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Economic literature indicates that high rates of malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies lead to significant losses in GDP. Ensuring that South Africans are food secure is therefore also an important aspect of sustained economic development.
Forging a way forward
The Gaby Shapiro Branch is of the view that addressing the plight of hunger experienced by our people requires an integrated strategy that combines interventions at a national level with bottom-up grassroots work.
As a branch we have partnered up with food kitchens and small-scale farmers who are working to address food security issues in the Western Cape. In July we convened a meeting of 13 food kitchen NPOs operating in impoverished communities across the province. At the meeting we discussed two central ideas. First, that food kitchens should also start food gardens so that they have a sustainable supply of vegetables to use for their meal preparation. This idea builds on an earlier 2020 initiative of the branch that highlighted the importance of food gardens and their impact on food security in the Western Cape. (A detailed article on this initiative was published in the ANC Today date 27 November 2020 pp. 9- 12).
The second idea discussed at the meeting was the establishment of an NGO food security coalition for networking, ideas and resources sharing. Since our meeting, this coalition is already underway with organisations sharing funding applications forms for food gardens and EPWP support from government. The organisations have agreed to meet at least once a month to keep this momentum going.
The Gaby Shapiro Branch has also established a Food Security Task team comprising of members of the BEC and general membership. The Task team works with other sectors in society in a social compact to advance and implement food security for our people. We believe that renewing and rebuilding our ANC includes us going back to the basics of working directly with grassroots organisations on grassroots issues, in a manner that “crowds-in” and shares resources, information and knowledge. This work does not require us to re-invent the wheel but to acknowledge and collaborate with role-players that have worked in the food security space for years.
We therefore propose, as an immediate and short-term intervention, that ANC branches establish and strengthen partnerships with community organisations which are working on addressing Food Security issues. This will restore trust within communities while assisting to meet a critical need. It has the added advantage of renewing and rebuilding the organisation at a grassroots level and enables branches to proactively ensure that the programmes and resources of the ANC-led government for food security does indeed reach our people.
Government and National ANC Intervention
At a government level, we believe that the following must be done:
1. Food Security be acknowledged as a driver of socio-economic development and must be placed higher on the agenda for socio-economic transformation
2. Sufficient resources must be committed into programmes which educate communities on, and assist them with developing their own sustainable food gardens
3. The National Government of Agriculture and Rural Development, which is responsible for food security policy and programmes, must increase its monitoring and evaluation of provincial government’s utilisation of the national grants provided for food security programmes and the extent to which these are implemented in a non-partisan manner to reach our poor communities.
4. The development and implementation of long-term food security measures, including the implementation of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee (UBIG) for all adults between the ages of 18 and 59. The UBIG must be an unconditional cash transfer that operates similarly to the R350 Social Relief of Distress Grant. We believe that there are several studies completed by various institutions and organisations such as the University of Cape Town and the Institute of Economic Justice that show such income guarantees and grants mitigate against starvation and promote more nutritious diets in the short-term because they represent stable income. In the long-term, the grants have sustained positive advantages such as improving health, educational capabilities and labour productivity. They also been deemed a developmental investment by experts across academia, civic society and the private sector.
Our Branch believes it is important that food security becomes a focused priority area of intervention in order to make a dent in the high levels of poverty experienced by our people. As leaders of South African society, the African National Congress must re-prioritise food security, and take a proactive and visible approach to addressing South Africans’ basic need for food.
