DA: High food prices undermine poor

Cape Town - Rapidly rising food prices are undermining poor South Africans' human right to be free from hunger, asserts the DA in research released on Monday.

The party said in a statement that the cumulative effect of global price increases had depressed agricultural production in South Africa.

"Very steep hikes in administered prices" were putting sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food out of reach of the majority of South African households.

"Survey data indicate that 52% of households experience hunger, while a further 33% are at risk as a consequence of declining purchasing power," the party said.

"Food price hikes of 14.3% (compared to 6.3% headline CPI) and the fact that the cost of food now consumes 39% of the income of poor South African households means that, in practice, the right to have access to sufficient food which is enshrined in the Constitution is quickly being eroded."

The Democratic Alliance's research found that the price of a five kilogram bag of maize meal, a staple food for many South African families, rose by 63.88% between January 2011 and January 2012.

For poor families who relied on a single breadwinner or depended on state grants to get by this represented a fundamental subsistence crisis.

The DA and "various international organisations" had found that one-third of households reported running out of money to buy sufficient food and that one out of five children said they were hungry because of this.

The proportion of undernourished people in South Africa had not declined since 2000. It was twice that of Malaysia and Chile and roughly the same as Gabon.

A varied basket of healthy and nutritious foods consisting of carbohydrates, protein, fruit and dairy costs up to 100% more than in other developing countries.

The DA said it was launching "a comprehensive campaign" to highlight South Africans' constitutionally enshrined human right to food.

The campaign marked the beginning of a programme of initiatives to try to improve food access and affordability.

The party said ensuring food security by containing and reducing the cost of food was affected by "relatively low levels of competition" in the food retail sector and inefficiencies in distribution that resulted from South Africa's declining transport infrastructure.

The "ever-rising cost of fuel" and additional cost inputs such as proposed new e-tolls were other factors affecting the cost of food.