SA food system ‘is not broken’ — there is a lack of will to ensure food security

MEC Vuyiswa Ramokgopa commended Union Against Hunger for bringing stakeholders together to begin the process of demanding change and fighting against hunger. She likened public and civil society collaboration to a soccer team, with all players having a significant role to play.

“I love what UAH has done in bringing others into the fold, that is exactly how we need to address these issues. We need to foster a safe, prosperous, hunger-free South Africa in one generation. We can’t wait for 30 years, we don’t have 30 years. That’s why, as a department, we have committed to a reduction of 10% in this province by 2029. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that is at least 250,000 people no longer experiencing hunger. Let’s end hunger,” said Ramokgopa

Despite progressive constitutional guarantees, including the right to food and basic nutrition, millions of South Africans still face chronic and acute hunger. This mismatch between legal promises and lived deprivation is the focus of the Union Against Hunger (UAH).

“This year, on World Hunger Day, 28 May 2025, the UAH will be hosting a number of dialogues nationally to engage communities and the public and share information that will better enable and support the mobilisation of communities to demand their right to food and hold government and industry to account,” said Dr Busiso Moyo, member of the UAH secretariat and postdoctoral researcher with the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security.

“The food system is not broken,” Moyo said at the mini-food indaba UAH event in Cape Town, which was held simultaneously. “It is working exactly as intended, to accommodate some and exclude many.”

The UAH, with its founding members, which include the Healthy Living Alliance, Grow Great, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, the Women on Farms Project, Callas Foundation and the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, will, through these activities, draw attention to the “slow violence” of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in South Africa.

Civil society organisations all echoed that hunger needed political will and a policy fit for purpose, over and above citizens understanding their right to food.

The Women on Farms organisation chaired a public meeting in Cape Town and called on Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht to urgently drop food prices to save lives.

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions, said the painful daily reality that haunted communities needed to be confronted — “the stomachs that go to sleep empty, the children whose growth is stunted, and the families forced to choose between a loaf of bread and a school uniform”.

According to Union Against Hunger, about 15.3 million people (25.8% of the population) experience food insecurity, while 6.8 million people (11.4% of the population) face chronic hunger. More than 1.5 million children have stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition. More shocking is that three infants die daily due to severe malnutrition in a country where the Constitution clearly states that “everyone has a right to sufficient food and every child to basic nutrition”.

“These are not just numbers,” said Vavi. “They are a national scandal. Comrades, what are the sources of this crisis? First, we must talk about land. Hunger in South Africa is rooted in land dispossession. It is a direct legacy of colonialism and apartheid. To this day, 72% of farmland remains in white hands. While land restitution was meant to reverse this injustice, the government has failed dismally,” said Vavi

Vavi said that by 2022, more than 90% of land claims resulted in financial compensation, not the return of land. Of the land that had been returned, more than 70% lay fallow, abandoned, because there was no post-settlement support, no equipment, no inputs, no training, no credit. The state had set people up to fail.

“Instead of a redistribution programme that empowers the landless to produce food and employment, we are witnessing a slow surrender to the land hunger of mining houses, golf estates and commercial elites,” said Vavi

He said that the food system was rigged against the poor.

“Let’s talk about the profiteering of the big food monopolies. Just six companies dominate our food retail sector – and they are making obscene profits while our people starve. In 2023, the CEO of Shoprite, Pieter Engelbrecht, earned a package of R63.5-million. That’s over R170,000 per day – enough to feed over 2,000 families daily on the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group’s household food basket.

“Meanwhile, food prices have risen more than double the CPI. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group shows that in April 2025, the average food basket cost over R5,500 while most workers earn less than R4,000.”

“This is not just a market failure. It is criminal greed.

“Third, we must expose the double standards of global trade,” said Vavi.

The Union Against Hunger also launched a petition (available here in English; here in isiZulu; here in Sesotho; here in isiXhosa) calling on Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht, who reportedly earned R83-million in the 2024 financial year, to bring food prices down urgently.

The three main demands are:

• Reduce food prices now;
• Introduce legislation to prevent food wastage; and
• Set up a national food security and nutrition council and finalise the national plan on food security and nutrition in consultation with communities.  DM