Urban Food Insecurity: An Emerging Crisis
Fact: four out of five poor urban households in Southern Africa experience chronic food shortages. Food insecurity has historically been seen as a rural phenomenon. However, urban food security is emerging as a significant challenge as more people move to urban areas.
The African Food Security Urban Network recently conducted a baseline survey on urban food security and surveyed over 6 500 households in eleven cities in Southern Africa. Eighty-one (81) percent of these households reported months of inadequate food provisioning over the past year.
Closer to home, 42 percent of poor urban households in Johannesburg suffer food insecurities, 80 percent in Cape Town and 92 percent in Msunduzi, Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Food insecurity is calculated using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, which measures the severity of food insecurity as reported by the households themselves. It asks households questions relating to changes in their diet or food consumption patterns as a result of limited resources needed to acquire food.
The study found that households are not getting an adequate spread of food types in their diet. On average, households only eat five out of the twelve food types; for example, meat, grain-based food and dairy.
In urban areas, food insecurity is not so much a problem of drought and the inability to produce food, but rather not being able to buy food. Not surprisingly, the study found a strong link between lack of income and food insecurity, where households with the lowest incomes experience the greatest levels of food insecurity.
January and February were bad months for households with more people experiencing food shortages. A possible contributing factor can be high expenditure during the December holiday period. Most food was obtained from supermarkets (25 percent), small shops, restaurants or takeaways (21 percent), and informal and street food (22 percent).
Food insecurity is likely to be exacerbated in the future as food prices rise and people lose jobs in the present global economic crisis. Households will need to prioritise expenditure between competing needs, such as children’s school fees, public transport, health costs and food.
The study also found that only seven percent of the households surveyed grow their own food. Furthermore, according to some non-verified statements made at the African Food Security Urban Network conference, 95 percent of community garden projects fail.
Urban food insecurity in South Africa can not be addressed through just one or two strategies. While the promotion of community gardens and urban agriculture projects are important, more strategies need to be pursued. We need to move away from seeing food security as a rural and food production issue.
In order to turn the right to have “access to sufficient food” into reality, as articulated in section 27 of the Bill of Rights, we need a comprehensive approach. Preferably one that includes job creation programmes to increase people’s ability to buy food, government subsidies to bring the prices of food down, and local food production programmes to support households and communities grow their own food.
[In screened box]
Case Study: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
The town of Belo Horizonte, Brazil is home to 2.5 million people with a further 2.5 million people living in 30 smaller towns in the immediate hinterland. Its municipality has a city-wide urban food security programme – one of the few in the world. Food security was one of the campaign pillars that brought the 1993 Mayor to power. Since then, the city has prioritised and embarked on a comprehensive and co-ordinated food security strategy.
• Four popular restaurants provide healthy subsidised meals to 8 000 people a day. Anyone, rich or poor can dine at these restaurants. For many people, it is also an important social event.
• A schools meal programme combines funds from national government and other programmes to provide meals to school children.
• Food banks give leftover produce from restaurants and other institutions, like fruit and vegetables, to charities to distribute as part of well-prepared communal meals, which are well received.
• The municipality allows private sector businesses to set up shops in allocated spaces, like municipal buildings and markets, on condition that they sell a certain basket of food at a price set by the municipality. These shops can make money from the other goods they sell at market prices. Mobile shops are also allowed to set up business in designated areas, if they operate on the same principle.
• The city has set up community stores under the branding of “straight from the farm”. These stores link urban and rural areas by providing market space in the city where rural producers can sell food, crafts and other goods and services directly to the public in the city. The municipality ensures these areas are safe and clean.
• All government departments, institutions and programmes in the city are required to source at least 30 percent of their food requirements from local sources.
• Some cities in Brazil have also initiated “food or transport for trash” programmes where households that make use of recycling centres for plastics, glass and other material receive food (or public transport) coupons that can be used to buy food or bus tickets.
The key to the success of the Belo Horizonte example was the political will to make it happen and the strong level of co-ordination that flowed from this. The department of food security within the municipality works closely with other departments to implement many of these programmes, like the department of education for the school feeding programme. The municipality has also not hesitated to intervene in the food production and distribution market.
(More information regarding Belo Horizonte can be obtained from www.sacsis.org.za. More information on urban food security can be found at www.afsun.org and www.ryerson.ca/foodsecurity.)
[Sidebar]
The rate of urbanisation
In 2000, 47 percent of the world population lived in urban areas. By 2030, it is expected to increase to 60 percent. Although Africa is predominantly rural, 37.3 percent lived in urban areas in 1999. But, with a growth rate of 4.87 percent, the African continent has the fastest rate of urbanisation. The urban population of developing countries is expected to reach 50 percent in 2020. On average, almost 180 000 people are added to the global urban population each day.
The African Food Security Urban Network recently conducted a baseline survey on urban food security and surveyed over 6 500 households in eleven cities in Southern Africa. Eighty-one (81) percent of these households reported months of inadequate food provisioning over the past year.
Closer to home, 42 percent of poor urban households in Johannesburg suffer food insecurities, 80 percent in Cape Town and 92 percent in Msunduzi, Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Food insecurity is calculated using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, which measures the severity of food insecurity as reported by the households themselves. It asks households questions relating to changes in their diet or food consumption patterns as a result of limited resources needed to acquire food.
The study found that households are not getting an adequate spread of food types in their diet. On average, households only eat five out of the twelve food types; for example, meat, grain-based food and dairy.
In urban areas, food insecurity is not so much a problem of drought and the inability to produce food, but rather not being able to buy food. Not surprisingly, the study found a strong link between lack of income and food insecurity, where households with the lowest incomes experience the greatest levels of food insecurity.
January and February were bad months for households with more people experiencing food shortages. A possible contributing factor can be high expenditure during the December holiday period. Most food was obtained from supermarkets (25 percent), small shops, restaurants or takeaways (21 percent), and informal and street food (22 percent).
Food insecurity is likely to be exacerbated in the future as food prices rise and people lose jobs in the present global economic crisis. Households will need to prioritise expenditure between competing needs, such as children’s school fees, public transport, health costs and food.
The study also found that only seven percent of the households surveyed grow their own food. Furthermore, according to some non-verified statements made at the African Food Security Urban Network conference, 95 percent of community garden projects fail.
Urban food insecurity in South Africa can not be addressed through just one or two strategies. While the promotion of community gardens and urban agriculture projects are important, more strategies need to be pursued. We need to move away from seeing food security as a rural and food production issue.
In order to turn the right to have “access to sufficient food” into reality, as articulated in section 27 of the Bill of Rights, we need a comprehensive approach. Preferably one that includes job creation programmes to increase people’s ability to buy food, government subsidies to bring the prices of food down, and local food production programmes to support households and communities grow their own food.
[In screened box]
Case Study: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
The town of Belo Horizonte, Brazil is home to 2.5 million people with a further 2.5 million people living in 30 smaller towns in the immediate hinterland. Its municipality has a city-wide urban food security programme – one of the few in the world. Food security was one of the campaign pillars that brought the 1993 Mayor to power. Since then, the city has prioritised and embarked on a comprehensive and co-ordinated food security strategy.
• Four popular restaurants provide healthy subsidised meals to 8 000 people a day. Anyone, rich or poor can dine at these restaurants. For many people, it is also an important social event.
• A schools meal programme combines funds from national government and other programmes to provide meals to school children.
• Food banks give leftover produce from restaurants and other institutions, like fruit and vegetables, to charities to distribute as part of well-prepared communal meals, which are well received.
• The municipality allows private sector businesses to set up shops in allocated spaces, like municipal buildings and markets, on condition that they sell a certain basket of food at a price set by the municipality. These shops can make money from the other goods they sell at market prices. Mobile shops are also allowed to set up business in designated areas, if they operate on the same principle.
• The city has set up community stores under the branding of “straight from the farm”. These stores link urban and rural areas by providing market space in the city where rural producers can sell food, crafts and other goods and services directly to the public in the city. The municipality ensures these areas are safe and clean.
• All government departments, institutions and programmes in the city are required to source at least 30 percent of their food requirements from local sources.
• Some cities in Brazil have also initiated “food or transport for trash” programmes where households that make use of recycling centres for plastics, glass and other material receive food (or public transport) coupons that can be used to buy food or bus tickets.
The key to the success of the Belo Horizonte example was the political will to make it happen and the strong level of co-ordination that flowed from this. The department of food security within the municipality works closely with other departments to implement many of these programmes, like the department of education for the school feeding programme. The municipality has also not hesitated to intervene in the food production and distribution market.
(More information regarding Belo Horizonte can be obtained from www.sacsis.org.za. More information on urban food security can be found at www.afsun.org and www.ryerson.ca/foodsecurity.)
[Sidebar]
The rate of urbanisation
In 2000, 47 percent of the world population lived in urban areas. By 2030, it is expected to increase to 60 percent. Although Africa is predominantly rural, 37.3 percent lived in urban areas in 1999. But, with a growth rate of 4.87 percent, the African continent has the fastest rate of urbanisation. The urban population of developing countries is expected to reach 50 percent in 2020. On average, almost 180 000 people are added to the global urban population each day.