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Half of South Africa’s population will be food insecure by 2025, with 48.96% of the population potentially not having enough to eat. Today, on World Food Day, 1 in 5 of the country’s households do not know where their next meal will come from.
According to retail group Shoprite’s Food Index, which tries to understand food security in South Africa better, 70% of children are born into poverty in the country. By age five, 1 in 4 suffers from stunted cognitive and physical development due to malnutrition. The index uses data on food insecurity from the World Data Lab.
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“Although the modelling shows an improvement by 2025, the reality is that in two years’ time, just under half of the population will still be struggling with hunger. That is why we must urgently escalate the rate of people escaping food insecurity. Doing so will improve not only their prospects but that of the country,” Sanjeev Raghubir, head of sustainability and CSI at the Shoprite Group, says.
According to the index, Limpopo will be the province that will suffer the worst food insecurity, with 54% of the population not sure about where their next meal will come from. Although numbers will look better in the Western Cape and Gauteng, the numbers will be high at 41% for Gauteng and 47% for the Western Cape.
The effect of hunger also varies between urban and rural populations. In the Western Cape, for example, 13% of food insecure people will be in rural areas and 87% in urban centres, but in the Eastern Cape, 59% of potentially hungry people will be in rural areas.
These percentages are based on research that the Shoprite Group commissioned to focus national attention on food insecurity and mobilise South Africans to explore every feasible option to end hunger by 2030 in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
However, Raghubir says, despite the grim numbers, the incidence of people escaping food insecurity is improving. In 2020, 52% of South Africans were food insecure, but the projections for 2025 show this declining to just under 49%.
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The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says solving hunger is easier than dealing with the problems it creates.
Hunger contributes to societal instability but also constrains development. If this is not tackled, children’s cognitive and physical development can be affected, ultimately contributing to an ongoing cycle of poverty, Raghubir says.
Food Index to increase awareness of food insecurity
The Shoprite Group commissioned the research to increase awareness of food insecurity and its attendant issues and encourage South Africans to support initiatives that are successfully rolling back hunger and poverty.
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“There are many ways ordinary people can contribute to existing, successful programmes. For example, consumers can donate as little as R5 to the Act For Change Fund at any Shoprite, Checkers or Usave supermarket. These donations are distributed to communities through vetted beneficiary organisations, including Rise Against Hunger, Meals on Wheels and Operation Hunger.”
Raghubir says it is not only about donating money. Other ways to help include starting or contributing to a food garden or volunteering at a soup kitchen. He says that even seemingly small interventions can make a significant difference.
The Group’s support of community food gardens is one example, and Shoprite has invested R50 million in 215 food gardens in South Africa and seven in other African countries. These food gardens indirectly helped 61,064 hungry people.
In addition to these collaborative community initiatives, Shoprite’s efforts to ensure food security include donating R226 million worth of surplus food to community partners in South Africa and on the continent, equating to 67 million meals.
The group also supports 114 early childhood development centres where 7,287 children were served 1.1 million nutritious meals, providing health benefits and better educational outcomes.
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To ensure cash-strapped consumers can afford to buy food, Shoprite introduced a range of R5 deli meals in 2017 after starting to sell its 600g in-house bakery bread for just R5 since April 2016, with a million loaves of the R5 bread subsidised each week.
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