Programme Director,
Honourable Premier of the North West Province, Ms. Thandi Modise,
Honourable Executive Mayor of Ngaka Modiri Molema, Councellor Phaladi Faku,
Honourable Cabinet Ministers present,
Honourable Members of Parliament present,
Honourable Members from House of Traditional Leaders present,
Honourable Country Representative for the FAO,
Honourable Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission,
Honourable Councilors present,
Invited delegates from various institutions,
Members of the media houses present,
Fellow South Africans.
We have gathered to celebrate World Food Day to draw attention to the 34th anniversary of the World Food Day Commemorations and the 67th anniversary of founding the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation in 1945.
The aim of this day World Food Day is to reflect and heighten public awareness on the global status of food security and to strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty.” And the theme for the 2013 World Food Day is “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition."
The right to food
Access to adequate, safe and nutritious food is a universal and a fundamental human right. Thus this right has been articulated and reinforced in a number of binding international protocols such as the 1996 World Food Summit Plan of Action, the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme.
As a global citizen and an activist developmental state South Africa has enshrined social economic rights in its Constitution. As such our Bill of Rights guarantees every citizen “the right to have access to ... sufficient food and water” and that “... the State must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.” (Constitution, 1996: 12)
We are therefore gathered here today to share our successes since World Food Day 2012, the prevailing challenges, our plans going forward as well as the areas where we need your support.
Progress since 2012
I am pleased to inform you that we commemorate this World Food Day following the recent approval of the Food and Nutrition Security Policy by the Cabinet. This policy signals a decisive step in establishing a platform for eliminating issues of chronic hunger and malnutrition. The Policy seeks to advance the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) to “halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.” (UN-MDGs, 2000”: 5).
We are also very proud our National Development Plan: Vision 2030 (NDP) which was released in November 2011. The National Development Plan sets out various methods and targets to eradicate poverty, reduce unemployment and eliminate inequality by 2030. The National Development Plan further recognizes that Food Security is key element of both poverty and inequality as it is both a consequence of poverty and inequality as well as a cause.
As a result the National Development Plan makes reference to a number of steps that will improve food security, including the expanded use of irrigation, security of land tenure, especially for women, and the promotion of nutrition education.
Another policy framework is our 2009-14 Medium Term Strategic Framework provides for 12 strategic outcomes with shapes the national development agenda. Rural Development is one of the national strategic priorities. This Outcome aims to achieve “Vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities and food security” through five interrelated outputs all of which will contribute to food security. Thus the Food Security Policy seeks to provide a framework for integrating the rural development programmes directed at food security.
The New Growth Path identifies agriculture, forestry and fisheries as a key growth driver and is it is inherently a labour intensive sector, it has been targeted as a key jobs driver, with the potential of creating in excess of 1 million new jobs.
These policies have had an impact. Since 2007, Government introduced the 1 Million Trees Programme to ensure greening of the country and to contribute towards mitigating the effects of climate change. This programme is designed to contribute positively to the attainment of food security. Opportunities presented by new afforestation in some of the provinces, for example, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, which is estimated to be 100 000 ha will contribute to employment creation and indirectly address food security.
In last year we piloted an Integrated Food and Nutritional Security Programme in 23 municipalities across the country which has been renamed as Fetsa Tlala and approved by Cabinet. I will say more about this initiative later. Thus it is not surprise that a recent study by the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) shows major improvements on our nutrition indicators as a result of enforcement of fortification regulations.
We are also encouraged by the recent FAO Report on the State of World Food Insecurity, which reflects declining trends in the number of individuals suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition. According to this Report, the global number of hungry individuals declined by 132 million people in the past ten years.
A similar decline is evident in South Africa. According to the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, which determines the level of household access to food and the percentage of South African households with inadequate or severely inadequate, access to food decreased from 23,9% in 2010 to 21,5% in 2012. Between 2002 and 2012, the percentage of households that experienced hunger decreased from 29,3% to 12,6% while the percentage of individuals who experienced hunger decreased from 23,8% to 10,8% (GHS, 2012).
The declining global food insecurity levels and the improvement in the national nutrition indices are indicative of the fact that we can indeed achieve the state of food and nutrition security for all.
Prevailing challenges
Although South Africa enjoys national food security through its own production and trade, household food security is threatened by globalisation, international trade regimes, and the poor storage and distribution of food. As a result South Africa has about 13.8 million individuals that experience inadequate access to food (Stats-SA, GHS 2010).
Despite all the international, regional and national interventions we are still faced with unacceptable levels of food insecurity. At the core of this phenomenon, are low levels of food production at household level, poor dietary intake, high levels of illiteracy, unemployment and underdevelopment. Women and children are unfortunately by and large at the receiving end of poverty and underdevelopment. Hence we intensified our efforts to enhance access to food and food security for vulnerable households, and children in particular.
It is unfortunate that agriculture in the former homelands is today still perceived as ‘subsistence’ farming and remains largely marginalised when compared to the commercial sector. As Government, we are also concerned about the declining number of households engaged in agriculture and this makes most households dependent on buying food.
Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey of 2012 noted that only about 18% of households are involved in primary agriculture production. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the buying power of the rural poor, relative to the urban consumers is heavily constrained by hikes in food prices. This means on average, consumers in rural areas are paying more than consumers in urban areas to buy the same basket of selected food products.
The road ahead
A state of food security will be achieved when all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Thus the sustainable eradication of hunger will require a significant increase in agricultural investment, equitable distribution of resources including a better focus on marketing of produce by smallholder farmers.
Thus the strategic goal of the National Food Security Policy is to ensure the availability, accessibility and affordability of safe and nutritious food at national and household levels. The Policy therefore calls for:
- Increased and better targeted public spending in social programmes which impact on food security
- Efforts to increase food production and distribution, and measures will which regulate trade in food
- Government food procurement to support community-based food production initiatives and smallholders
- Increased access to production loans for the emerging agricultural sector.
Investing in agriculture is one of the most effective strategies for reducing poverty and hunger whilst promoting sustainability. A growing demand for agricultural products over the coming decades will put increasing pressure on the natural resource base, which in many developing regions is already severely degraded. Investment is needed for conservation of natural resources and the transition to sustainable production. This includes forestry, fisheries and aquaculture resources which play an important role as a source of livelihood for households especially in rural areas and coastal towns.
Fisheries contribute to national food self-sufficiency through direct consumption, trade and exports. In the inland provinces like the North- West, fisheries and aquaculture can contribute significantly to household food security through the use of existing water impoundments. We expect that Parliament will approve amendments to the Marine Living Resources Act before the end of October. These amendments will restore fishing rights to small-scale fishers and fishing communities to further transform the marine fishing sector.
Given low levels of economic growth which have a negative impact on job creation, the agricultural sector is one of the few sectors that have an ability to create jobs and provide much needed employment to our people. It is within this context that we want to use the World Food Day to encourage our people to go back to farming because it is an opportunity to provide much needed reprieve.
To ensure market access for smallholder farmers, Government has forged a partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP). The South African Government has allocated R180 million to WFP to supply food stuffs for the Lesotho food relief programme. Of this amount, 40% of food stuffs will be procured from smallholder producers.
Furthermore, we are working very closely with the provincial departments of agriculture and environmental affairs in implementing the National Aquaculture Policy Framework which was approved by Cabinet earlier this year.
In our quest to increase production efficiencies within our poultry industry, the Department has signed an MOU with the South African Poultry Association to assist with training and development of smallholder farmers under the Developing Poultry Farmers' Organisation.
Within the context of the World Food Day theme, Government is committed to ensure that the sector produces healthy food through agro-ecological friendly food production methods, to realise healthy food systems.
As mentioned earlier, for us to attain food security, the policy environment must be conducive and the Cabinet’s recent approval of the Food and Nutrition Security Policy and the Fetsa Tlala Food Production Initiative resonates well with the World Food Day theme.
The priority of this Fetsa Tlala Food Production Initiative is to ensure that underutilized agricultural land is put under production to increase local access to food. The initiative is intended to ensure that every South African has access to sufficient and nutritious food aimed at ending hunger in accordance with the NDP vision 2030 statement “we have food on the table”. We await in anticipation the launch of the initiative by the State President His Excellency Jacob Zuma on the future date to be announced.
While Government endeavors to deal with food security, we are however occasionally derailed in our mission by the impact of disaster occurrences such as drought, veld fires and floods. The enactment of Disaster Management Act (No 57 of 2002) has provided guidance on adaptation and mitigation strategies, which assists and continues to improve resilience of the sector from these occurrences.
Government is currently rolling out the Flood Assistance Scheme in Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, Limpopo, Northern Cape including North West provinces as a result of floods that occurred between December 2010 and February 2011. As part of the scheme roll-out, infrastructure repairs have been completed in most of the farming communities that were affected.
As Government, we would like to alert farmers involved in the farming of fruit and vegetables of the invader fruit fly originating from Asia which is currently invading Africa. This invader species is causing major damage in fruits and vegetables. As a result, we are losing almost 950 thousand tons of mangoes produced in Africa. That of course, may negatively affect the issue of producing food for the people at the very time when we want to combat hunger (Fetsa Tlala).
I am also aware of the prevailing drought conditions in the North West, Limpopo, Free State, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape. Government is taking the matter seriously and is seeking immediate responses.
In addition to our efforts in dealing with weather-related incidents in general, I am pleased to announce that the country will be hosting the Third Global Conference on Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security and Climate Change on the 03rd to the 05th of December 2013. During this Conference, the scientists and experts from all over the world will descend on to our country to deliberate on current agricultural policies and practices, and considering new developments, with a view to growing more food, for more people, in a more sustainable way.
As hosts, we will be pushing for the Conference to further entrench a world-wide alliance of all parties – governments, international organisations, farmers, the private sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academics to promote “Climate-Smart Agriculture”. In the same vein, South Africa will be hosting a meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development later this month, under the theme “the effect of climate change in world food security”.
We believe that integrating and effectively co-ordinating our support programmes such as CASP, Ilema/Letsema, Agri-BEE and other partnerships including private sector, provides an opportunity to address the social ills and underdevelopment with an ultimate aim of ending hunger in the country. Government has set aside R2,38 billion for CASP and Ilema/Letsema, of which 70% will be focusing on primary food production. Through this investment, almost 59 thousand vulnerable households will benefit in the current financial year.
In partnership with other departments, we are promoting the consumption of diverse food groups. In line with this, indigenous foods can contribute in providing sustainable sources of nutrients. Government is currently conducting research to produce propagation material of indigenous food products [i.e. amaranthus – morogo, amadumbe]. We believe that this will further enhance and restore dignity in the knowledge systems of our indigenous people in support of their food security needs.
Conclusion
The theme for this year’s World Food Day enjoins to produce enough food to meet the population’s food needs now and in the future. We therefore, as the Government, Civil Society and communities at large should ensure that our practices are based on the sustainable use of the natural agricultural, fisheries and forestry resources.
Ending hunger, poverty and food insecurity will never be achieved through food production alone and without working together as the different spheres of government, the agri-industry, the agro-processing and the retail sector, the research based institutions, the NGOs and civil society.
On this 2013 World Food Day I urge individuals, organisations, big or small and the nation at larger to be part of this new movement for ensuring food security now and in the future.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you!
