Food corporations fuel hunger, report finds

SOUTH Africa’s food corporations were “guilty of perpetuating hunger” by treating food as a profit-generating commodity, while the government entrenched inequality by promoting export-led agriculture and failing to deliver on its land policies, shows a report by the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign.

Yesterday the campaign, a network of civil society organisations, released its report arising from a three-day “people’s tribunal” on hunger, food prices and landlessness.

It heard more than 30 testimonies from across the country, alongside input from experts and academics at Constitution Hill in May.

“Commodified food is inaccessible and unaffordable for the millions of unemployed in South Africa. Healthy food is completely out of reach if it has to be bought from food corporations,” said the report, adding 20 percent of commercial farms accounted for more than 80 percent of food produced, while four big retailers sell 55 percent of all foodstuffs.

It pointed to food price increases above inflation, and price fixing, as putting food beyond people’s affordability.

The campaign called for an imme- diate end to profiteering from food and the “invasion and conquest” of communities by supermarkets, and maintained the urgent need for feeding schemes for poor university students.

The government was sharply criticised for its land reform failures, including lack of support for emerging farmers, and “allowing export of food while 14 million South Africans go to bed hungry, while food locally is not affordable”.

“State economic policies increased inequality. Together with the lack of basic services like water, health, housing and electricity, the struggle for food is a serious survival challenge for many,” said the report.

The report comes in the wake of Statistics SA finding that 10.2 million South Africans – effectively one in five – lived below the food line in 2011, although this was down from a spike in 2009.

An examination of absolute poverty between 2006 and 2011” report, released last year, showed poor households spent a third of their income on food, mostly on mielie meal, then bread. In contrast, non-poor households only spent 10.8 percent on food and nonalcoholic drinks. – Marianne Merten