Fix SA’s food security myth

A month ago, just as South Africa’s national lockdown, imposed by government to initially slow the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rate, got underway, I was almost frantically refreshing the worldometers.info/coronavirus page to see how fast the pandemic and its death toll was increasing locally and abroad.

About two weeks into the lockdown, I stopped doing this. The numbers grew too large too quickly, and I struggled to fully comprehend this tragic new reality. Also at the beginning of the lockdown, the Farmer’s Weekly team, along with the country’s farming sector, was focusing much of its attention on getting the message out that South Africans needn’t panic about food shortages. This is as true now as it was then. The country has ample grain stocks and a good harvest on the land; in fact, South Africa will be able to export surpluses of fruit, grains and other commodities. Similarly, livestock and poultry producers have been able to meet the demand for meat, eggs and dairy.

There have been some temporary shortages of a few products, such as garlic, of which the country is a net importer, and the likelihood remains that other products for which South Africa relies on imports, such as rice, might become scarcer later in the year. However, what we didn’t take fully into account at the beginning of this lockdown was the ability of all South Africans to afford and access food during this time. The economic devastation caused by the lockdown hit the country like a blow to the gut.

Most of us have already suffered a loss of income, and many have lost jobs and their entire livelihoods. Economists now estimate that South Africa’s unemployment figure may increase to 50% after the lockdown. Many small businesses, and even medium and larger ones, will simply not survive. As a result, the number of starving people in the country will increase. During a recent online seminar, Dr Sifiso Ntombela, chief economist at the National Agricultural Marketing Council, said: “We will learn from this pandemic and the lockdown that it’s not enough to say South Africa is a food-secure country and net exporter of food when 14,8 million people go to bed hungry. We will see a much stronger focus on household food security.” ( Read his article on pages 6 and 7).

If, out of this crisis, we can learn lessons that will change things in our country in such a way that we can move closer to achieving household food security on a national scale, then we will be in a much better position to heal from this global tragedy.

Right now, people need food, but ultimately, they need jobs. Farmers are not to blame for the fact that about a quarter of South Africans are food-insecure. Rather, it is a product of the shortcomings and inefficiencies in governance and policy. However, there is no reason why the agriculture sector cannot use this opportunity to take the lead in beginning to fix what needs to be fixed, to rectify the shameful situation in which a country that is able to grow more food than it needs allows a quarter of its people to go hungry.