Some success in reducing hunger

The major problem with accurate and comprehensive statistics is that it takes a long time to publish a report after conducting a survey and calculating the numbers. Unfortunately, this is also the case with a recent Stats SA report that aims to measure the extent of hunger and food security in SA.

Nevertheless, the publication of the first report of its kind at the end of March following data collection in a general household survey in 2017 makes for very interesting reading. Firstly, readers would be amazed by the sheer size of the number of people affected by hunger or food insecurity in SA. Secondly, the report identified a definite trend that life in SA is improving faster than in the rest of the world, especially in comparison to other African countries.

Stats SA has been collecting data on the experience of hunger in SA since 2002 when it included a few questions about hunger and food access in its general household survey. These questions included ‘Did you skip any meals during the last 12 months because there was not enough food in the house?’ and ‘Has it happened more than five days in the last 30 days?’.

Based on the answers, the authors found that some 6.8 million people experienced hunger in SA during 2017. This is equal to nearly 12% of SA’s population in 2017. Although an alarming figure, it is much better than the experiences being felt to the north of our borders.

Research by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation recently found that 10.7% of the world’s population of 7.6 billion people face hunger – that is 815 million hungry people. Hunger is most prevalent in Africa with 23.2% of the population going hungry regularly, according to the UN. Thus, hunger is more than twice as prevalent in the rest of Africa than in SA.

Read: Community-private partnerships can ensure ‘workable land reform’

The Stats SA report shows that SA is making some progress in its war on hunger. There were 13.5 million South Africans who experienced hunger in 2002, says Stats SA. While the number of people who experienced hunger halved to 6.8 million by 2017, the actual progress has been much better, which becomes apparent when viewed in terms of percentages. The population was much smaller in 2002 (45.5 million people at mid-year) and the percentage of the population that experienced hunger at one time or another was at 29.7% – considerably more than the 12% reported for 2017.

Figures in different reports by the UN show that the situation improved much more slowly in Africa as a whole over the same period. The percentage of hungry people in Africa decreased from 33% in 2002 to 23% in 2017. Admittedly, the figures were skewed in 2002 when a big part of southern Africa was hit by a serious drought in 2002 and 13 million people, mostly in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, faced hunger.

Read: Rebooting food: Finding new ways to feed the future

Stats SA says the measurement of food security is complex as the concept of food security in itself is very broad.

According to the report, there are four dimensions to food security:

• Food availability
• Food accessibility
• Food utilisation
• Food stability.

The fact that food availability refers to the physical existence of food at national and household level is problematic. Obviously we have enough food at a national level – as a quick visit to any supermarket will show – but not all households have access to adequate food.

Stats SA quotes an international food and agricultural report that states the obvious link between food security, unemployment, poverty and inequality. A different Stats SA report quantified a food poverty line as R441 per person per month in terms of 2015 prices, adjusted to R531 per month in 2017.

The food poverty line is the monthly amount a person needs to be able to buy food to the value of 2 100 calories per day. For most people living close to the breadline, this equates to porridge and tea for breakfast, bread with jam for lunch, and lentils or rice with tomato, carrots and maybe a little meat for dinner. 

Unfortunately, the Stats SA report leaves us in the lurch because the data relates to 2017. Reports from the Department of Labour note a slight increase in both employment and total wages paid during the last quarter of 2018 compared to 2017, but the unemployment rate remained largely unchanged due to a further increase in the population and the number of work seekers. The number of people below the food poverty line has probably increased.

Subsistence farming doesn’t translate into better food security

One of the conclusions in the Stats SA report that might raise questions deals with the involvement of households in agricultural activities. The report assumes that involvement in agriculture and subsistence farming will ensure higher food security. However, not all the figures bear this out.

While SA showed a remarkable improvement in terms of poverty and ensuring better food security, the proportion of households involved in agriculture decreased significantly, from 2.9 million households in 2011 to 2.3 million households in 2016, or from nearly 20% of all households to less than 14%.

It is also telling that the provinces that are predominantly rural and with the highest levels of poverty (Limpopo at 25% and the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal at 20% each) also had the highest level of reliance on agricultural activities at household level. More than 91% of households in poverty-stricken Limpopo and nearly 82% of those in the equally poor Eastern Cape are involved in agricultural activities to supply their own food.

Reliance on grants

Stats SA says that 44% of households involved in farming still reported social grants as their main source of income, while 40% reported that they are reliant on salaries and wages. The survey found that households are not involved in activities such as fish farming, forestry and game farming, usually the domain of commercial enterprises.

A quick glance at the income figures of different African countries and their reliance on household or subsistence farming would show that small-scale farming does not lead to economic freedom. The countries that produce up to 80% of their food by way of household farming are also the poorest on the African continent.

Another important discussion in the report deserves a mention: households with more members reported higher instances of hunger. While 18.6% of households of one to three people sometimes go hungry (inadequate or severely inadequate access to food), more than 33% of households with eight and more people experienced hunger according to the survey. 

Stats SA comes to the conclusion that, despite significant gains, food inadequacy and hunger are still challenges in SA.