REUTERS Children holding plates wait in a queue to receive food. The writer says lack of access to adequate nutrition although there is sufficient food supply speaks to the way that food, like other resources in our country, is mal-distributed. REUTERS/BabuThat some people lack access to adequate nutrition although there is sufficient food supply, speaks to the way that food, like other resources in our country, is mal-distributed, writes Bathabile Dlamini.
Oxfam recently published a report entitled: “Hidden Hunger in South Africa”, which estimates that one in four South Africans experience hunger despite there being enough food.
That some people lack access to adequate nutrition although there is sufficient food supply, speaks to the way that food, like other resources in our country, is mal-distributed, contributing to levels of inequality and serving to maintain poverty.
The Oxfam report underscores what the Department of Social Development outlined when it developed the Household Food and Nutrition strategy, which I will discuss in a bit more detail later in this article.
Oxfam reports on levels of unemployment and that poverty linked to a lack of decent and regular income impacts more severely on women, particularly rural women. There is a consistent link between levels of poverty and unemployment and demands for social assistance. There are generally two approaches to defining unemployment: as voluntary and involuntary.
The Oxfam study, like many before it, correctly suggests that unemployment in South Africa is involuntary. This means that there are limited opportunities for the unemployed to join the formal sector, and also a lack of capital and support for self-employment.
Given the social make-up of our society and our history of racial capitalism, black women, especially those in rural areas, continue to bear the brunt of such economic and social exclusion. The evidence suggests that people seek state income support because they do not have work, and cannot access work, not because they don’t want to work.
Citing data from Statistics SA, the Oxfam report indicates that the rate of unemployment is 25 percent. In its Gender Statistics Report, Stats SA writes that the unemployment rate for women is 2.9 percent higher than the national average. To illustrate this, last year, 72.6 percent of white men of working age were employed compared to 30.8 percent of black women of working age.
The overwhelming evidence that unemployment for black women is due to structural issues in the economy and society, does not stop many elite commentators from suggesting that poor people, the majority of whom are black women and children, are not in decent work because they rely on social grants.
This criticism is indicative of the patriarchal and racist nature of our society. The vast majority of beneficiaries of state social grants are black children and these grants are invariably received on their behalf by the primary caregivers, black women.
In contrast, there are very few criticisms, if any, levelled at the R50 billion to R60bn that goes annually to the rich through tax rebates, presumably because these social grants to the rich go primarily to white males perhaps regarded by society as more deserving of such state support.
The Oxfam study further points out that the key strategies for dealing with poverty and inequality rest with structural changes that focus on improving the asset base of poor communities. This would include land reform and the necessary support services to make such land productive. In terms of securing household food security and leveraging food as a means to improve people’s participation in the economy, we are again confronted by significant structural issues.
The Oxfam study confirms the data that the Departments of Social Development and Agriculture presented to cabinet as part of the Policy on Household Food and Nutrition Security. That is, that the vertical structure of the food industry effectively blocks out new entrants into the food economy.
The Oxfam study suggests that five large food retailers control 60 percent of the market and, often, the price of certain food products, such as bread, is fixed.
At the same time, cheaper food products are highly processed and unhealthy, which compromises the nutrition status of poor people. People who do not have access to land and the support to use such land for food production, pay exorbitant prices for food. This includes high transportation costs to get to markets outside villages for rural people who have to purchase food.
The Oxfam report indicates that for people living in Fetakgomo in Limpopo, the cost of travelling to a market is R200. For a single mother with one child, that would be more than 50 percent of the monthly CSG benefit. The same report indicates that child-headed households in Bloemendal in the Western Cape have a daily diet of white bread and cheap juice or sugar water.
The structural nature of poverty, inequality and hunger with its skewed impact on black women requires bold and radical change. The Oxfam report makes a few suggestions, including climate-smart agricultural practices.
In addition to those outlined in their report I would include: the speedy implementation of the Household Food and Nutrition Strategy which seeks to transform the food economy through land reform and extension services; regulating the prices of certain foods; guaranteeing markets for small producers through prescribed purchasing by state institutions, including those engaged in the provision of food through various social protection programmes, and the establishment of popular markets in villages, townships and towns.
This should be supported by a decent minimum wage that will ensure that people have adequate funds to purchase decent food. The social protection floor as suggested by the National Development Plan should be implemented across government which will ensure that the costs of many basic services such as transport, housing, energy and education are either cheap or free so that the money people earn through work go towards sustaining and improving their livelihoods.
Rural economies in areas of mineral wealth should be stimulated through equity and beneficiation programmes and local purchasing and employment programmes that would fundamentally change many of the rural towns and villages.
As South Africans we need to realise that more radical changes are needed to ensure that we are able to eradicate poverty and inequality. This will require buy-in from the elite who are prone to blaming the poor for systemic poverty and who would need to embrace solidarity-based policies if we are to build a peaceful society that works for all.
Progressive (left) policies have served to reduce poverty and inequality rates in Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela while still growing their economies in ways that the global financial institutions have begrudgingly praised.
South Africa has implemented many of the same social programmes, but we have to emulate some of the structural changes to our economy if we are to change the lives of all our people, especially black women in rural areas.
* Dlamini is Minister of Social Development.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media
Sunday Independent
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