Food insecurity in South Africa

Early on in this blog I discussed some of the issues surrounding the current drought in South Africa. Since then, the drought has worsened and food supplies are critically low. There has also been a shortage of donor funds to support people, partly as a result of droughts having very slow impacts that can often pass donors by. The drought has led to extreme food shortages leaving many families suffering.

A paper by Kamara and Sally (2004) in Development Southern Africa investigates some of the potential water management options with regard to food security in South Africa. Although it was written in 2004, it still has relevance to the present day. The paper highlights the link between water security and food security in poor households, emphasising the need to ensure good water supply. One of the biggest problems for South Africa in this regard is the low physical productivity in agriculture and low irrigated crop yields. The low productivity of crop growth points to one key problem, the fact that South Africa is simply unable to produce enough food especially when droughts occur.

The majority of South Africa’s water use is for the agricultural sector, much like other countries around the world. In order to manage water better, this is the sector that therefore needs to be targeted with more sustainable and equitable water use. A number of different techniques to achieve this, such as drip fed irrigation, have been mentioned in previous posts.

Figure 1: Dry crops in South Africa

The paper discusses a model called Podium which is a ‘decision support tool for testing policy options that aim at striking a balance between water allocations for food production on the one hand, and for satisfying domestic, industrial and environmental needs on the other hand.’ This model is intriguing as it attempts to balance the importance of different demands within a country. The model incorporates many different aspects of water usage and water availability. This form of water management may be particularly useful in a country such as South Africa which struggles with water availability due to climate and few large river catchments in their territory.

One alternative to improving water usage is to address food insecurity through food aid. However, a paper by del Ninno et al. (2008) suggests that food aid is not very effective at reducing food insecurity in Africa and instead private markets can often been more efficient at providing food for those that need it the most. Importantly, it is the fact that food aid is poorly targeted and often has other costs associated (such as administration costs). If these could be addressed then food aid would be far more successful but only as a short term solution during periods of severe shortage as consistent food aid could reduce the desire of a country like South Africa to grow its own food.  

Between water management, the Podium model, food aid and markets, there are many solutions to deal with problems of food insecurity in South Africa and other African countries. The success of these is however dependent on how effectively they are implemented and who they benefit.