Tracy Ledger
Somewhere between 55 and 80 percent of South African households cannot afford to buy the food they need to fill their basic nutrition requirements.
The greatest number of South Africa’s food insecure live in urban areas, concentrated in the big metros. Although South Africa is generally considered to be a middle-income country, it has household food insecurity rates more generally associated with some of the world’s poorest places.
South Africa ranks in the top 20 countries in the world in terms of the negative effects of malnutrition. A significant portion of the public health burden is related to non-communicable diseases directly related to poor nutrition. Poorly nourished children not only suffer from delayed learning ability, but are also at a higher risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes later in life.
Recent research suggests that more than one in four South African children, aged three or younger, are so malnourished that they are classified as stunted.
But the City of Cape Town’s main planning strategies are almost entirely silent on the issue: the Social Development Strategy mentions the word “food” only four times, and it is only mentioned once in its Economic Growth Strategy.
Where the City does have programmes aimed at addressing food insecurity, these are references to the establishment of soup kitchens and a small number of backyard vegetable gardens – interventions that will have only a negligible impact on the problem, and reflect no innovative thinking at all. Given the scale of the problem, its human cost and its threat to the long-term sustainability of the City itself, this seems an extraordinary oversight.
The omission seems to reflect the general thinking that people are hungry because they do not have sufficient income to purchase the food they require (correct), together with the conclusion that such hunger is not really the direct responsibility of the state (incorrect).
There are many, many households that cannot afford to buy their own home, or pay for private health care, or for private education. There are just as many who cannot afford to commute in private vehicles or to pay for basic amounts of electricity or water. None of these facts suggests that the state should simply shrug and express its condolences with the poor as its entire strategic response.
In fact, the opposite applies: the more that people cannot afford these basic necessities of life, the more important it is for the state to intervene, from subsidised housing to public health care and transport. This is the basis on which more equitable and liveable cities are built. Surely malnutrition should rate higher on the deprivation scale than access to a bus service?
Dr Jane Battersby’s 2011 report for AFSUN – The State of Urban Food Insecurity in Cape Town – highlighted just how widespread food insecurity in the city is. In some parts of Khayelitsha, household food insecurity rates were almost 90 percent. Significant numbers of households are forced to adopt coping mechanisms such as regularly skipping meals or borrowing food from their neighbours. Poor nutrition, in terms of both the nutritional content of food consumed and dietary diversity, is common.
This is not just an unacceptable human tragedy. It also has very real implications for the long-term sustainability of the city and all its residents. The long-term impact of this on poverty and inequality, as well as the public health bill, cannot be overstated.
The relatively high cost of food is a key factor putting upward pressure on wages for semi-skilled and unskilled labour, given that food is the single biggest household expenditure item for most lower-income families. There are many studies that have established the link between household food insecurity rates and crime.
What is the role of local government in addressing food insecurity? Some observers are of the opinion that there is no direct responsibility or mandate for municipalities in this regard. Instead, a municipal response is conceived as some kind of “optional extra” to be tacked on to existing strategies for development at the discretion of the municipality. I would disagree.
The Local Government Municipal Systems Act of 2000 (MSA) introduced the legislative requirement for local municipalities to undertake medium-term integrated development planning, in the form of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
The MSA was written in recognition of the fact that “the system of local government under apartheid failed dismally to meet the basic needs of the majority of South Africans”, and with the express goal to “give meaning to developmental local government and to empower municipalities to move progressively towards the social and economic upliftment of communities and the provision of basic services to all our people, and specifically the poor and the disadvantaged”.
Chapter 5 of the MSA sets out the parameters for integrated development planning: Section 25 makes it clear that the IDP must reflect “the municipal council’s vision for the long-term development of the municipality, with special emphasis on the municipality’s most critical development and internal transformation needs” (my emphasis).
Under almost any understanding of the term, access to sufficient food qualifies as just such a “critical development need”. Its importance is underscored by its inclusion in Section 27 of the Chapter 2 Bill of Rights of our constitution. Clearly, food security was always intended to be an important part of any developmental state agenda.
Against this background, a clear legislative imperative for municipalities to focus on their most critical development needs and the current crisis of food insecurity, one would imagine that the City of Cape Town’s integrated planning process would have food security at the front and centre.
They might reasonably be expected to have gone as far as Toronto, whose city council voted in 2002 to make Toronto a food-secure city. This made food security a strategic priority, with the Toronto Food Policy Council mandated to oversee its implementation. After all, there are a lot more hungry households in Cape Town than in Toronto.
In this oversight, of course, Cape Town is not unique – none of the large metros have a meaningful or comprehensive urban food security plan in place. But there are some ways in which it is doing a worse job than its peer group: not only is the City failing to design any meaningful urban food security strategies, it seems determined to do its best to undermine existing ones. This is evident by its steadfast refusal to acknowledge the role (both present and potential) of the PHA in a local food security solution.
Pro-poor, pro-equity food planning requires, among other things, that suitable land in and around urban areas is prioritised and protected for food production, preferably by smallholders, where the greatest equity benefits may be realised. It also requires that consumers have a real choice of food-provisioning strategies that go beyond formal retail, which is heavily implicated in a system that has steadily widened the gap between the producer and consumer prices of food.
This kind of strategic food planning goes far beyond token gestures of charity, or misguided “blame the victim” strategies based on the assumption that poor urban households must solve all their own food access problems in a backyard garden.
Urban food planning is a reality in many places, from Canada to Brazil and across to Europe. Many cities now plan their food systems in considerable detail, recognising the importance of these in achieving long-term goals around health, the environment and socio-economic equity. It is way past overdue that South African cities start to pay attention and begin to mainstream comprehensive food planning into the IDP process.
l Ledger is an agro-food systems researcher