Republic of south africa

1. PREAMBLE

1.1 WHY A FOOD SECURITY POLICY FOR SOUTH AFRICA?

The fundamental premise for the development of the Food Security Policy is the Constitution, which affirms democratic values of human dignity, equality, freedom, economic and social rights. Food security is integral to the Bill of Rights and other sections of the Constitution. The Constitution refers to food in Section 27 1 (b) of the Bill of Rights, which states that “every citizen has a right to access to sufficient food and water” and that “the State must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the realisation of this right”. Section 28 1 (c) states that “every child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services and social services”, and Section 35 2 (e) further provides that “every detained person and sentenced prisoner has the right to adequate nutrition”. Section 7 (2) of the Constitution requires that the “State must respect, protect, promote and fulfill the rights in the bill of rights”.

^{These are other reasons why a food security policy is urgently needed in South Africa. Firstly; amongst key stakeholders (government, the international community, research institutions and civil society) there are a number of conceptual interpretations and definitions of food security. This results in a lack of consensus on food security diagnosis, prognosis and strategies, and ultimately in programme design. A Food Security Policy is needed to set out the critical elements and ambit of the concept, through a process which is inclusive to ensure that all the differing views are accommodated. In this way common understandings can be reached and broad ownership achieved. Secondly, food security is a complex issue characterised by inter-disciplinary approaches and operates at different levels, requiring different initiatives based on specific contexts. The absence of an overarching policy framework within which these initiatives can be synergized and re-directed to areas where the intensity of food insecurity is highest defeats their desired impact.
Thirdly, as part of the Southern African Development Community [SADC], South Africa contributes immensely to regional food security. This Policy is needed to determine strategies for the country and also spells out its proposed international engagements to assist the region to be food secure, because a food insecure neighbouring country will have a significant impact on the food security status of South Africa.}

1.2 FOOD SECURITY DEFINITION

1.2.1 Background

A widely accepted definition of food security is provided by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO] as being “access by all people at all times to the food required for a healthy life”. The World Bank defines food security as “the physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food by all, at all times, to meet their dietary and food preferences”. The World Food Programme [WFP], when measuring food security levels in time of emergency, “explores what is justifiable and feasible” to calculate food insecurity conditions and to determine the humanitarian needs. Oxfam defines food security as being “when everyone has at all times access to and control over sufficient quantities of good quality food for an active healthy life”, and they use this definition to determine whether people are able to meet their immediate food needs and also to define the vulnerability and risks faced by different groups in relation to the availability of food.

These definitions incorporate four specific dimensions:

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  Adequate availability of food
  
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  Accessibility [physical, social and economic means] of food,
  
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  Utilisation, quality and safety of food, and
  
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  Stability of food supply.
  

People are considered to be vulnerable to food insecurity or food insecure if any one of these conditions is not fulfilled.

1.2.2 South Africa’s adopted food security definition and threshold measure

This policy defines national food security as “the right to have access to and control over the physical, social and economic means to ensure sufficient, safe and nutritious food at all times, in order to meet the dietary food intake requirements for a healthy life by all South Africans”. The determinants of food security in this definition rely on food availability, accessibility and its utilisation. Food security precedes nutrition security, nutrition therefore become the most best suitable outcome indicator to measure food security. The World Health Organisation’s [WHO] recommended adequate daily energy intake of different population groups with different nutritional needs is presented in table 1.

	Infant: 6-12 months	Child: 1 – 5 years	Adult /adolescent	Pregnant women	Lactating mother
Energy (kJ)	3 121	5693	11113	11130	11626

Table 1. Energy requirements [kJ] as per individual groupings (Source: WHO)
In the South African context this policy determines a recommended adult individual daily energy consumption of 2650 kcal and individuals consuming less than 1792 kcal per day are regarded as food insecure. In this policy we set a food poverty line of R260 spent of food per individual per month to serve as a proxy indicator for food security. This amount covers 70% of the costs of the basic nutritious food basket¹. Adjustments on the monetary value will be made to take inflation into consideration when monitoring the food security situation.
Households are to be regarded as being in a situation of food poverty when their monthly spending on food, plus the value of food gifts received, plus the value of own-produced food, is less than the combined food poverty value of all the individuals living in that household.