F OOD CH A IN Hope Farming is a formal cooperative producing herbs, micro and baby greens and seedlings.
REINVENTING THE FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN Ensuring fair play for all along the food chain requires change and collaboration. By TREVOR CRIGHTON
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he latest National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile (NIDS-CRAM) survey and the 2020 South Africa Child Gauge, an annual publication of the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town, both demonstrate compelling evidence that the South African food system is not working. Dr Scott Drimie, director of the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL), says that hunger is rife and food access is a daily struggle for more than 14 million South Africans. “The food choices facing households are shaped in powerful ways by their immediate food environment and the broader food system. This includes all the elements involved in taking food from the producer to the consumer,” he says. Zinzi Mgolodela, director of corporate affairs at Zinzi Woolworths, says that Mgolodela shared value creation is essential throughout all processes and engagements around the supply chain to ensure fairness. “Our food supply chain strategy is, in part, informed by the consciousness of food insecurity in South Africa. Broadening access to food cuts across how our food is grown through our Farming for the Future programme to the nutritional content in food, waste management and, ultimately, how that positively impacts the price of the product,” she says.
“With short supply chains there are fewer opportunities for profiteering along the chain and farmers can shift closer to being price-makers, rather than price-takers.” – Dr Scott
Eight young farmers from the Sustainability Institute’s AgroEcology Academy have joined the Living Soils Community Learning Farm initiative.
population. “Assuming moderate demographic change, fairly rapid economic growth and effective technological development, the agricultural sector will be able to meet the growing food demand of a larger, even more urbanised and wealthier South African society in 2050,” says Drimie. “Nevertheless, success is not guaranteed and will require comprehensive strategies for managing land and water use, research and investment to sustain yield growth, strategies for the production and distribution of adequate and high-nutrient food and addressing environmental concerns focused on the conservation of the productive land in South Africa.”
Drimie, director, Southern Africa Food Lab
Mgolodela adds that the increased expectation for value under economic pressures has seen the company collaborate across its supply chain to help customers. “For example, we have worked closely with our suppliers to invest in the price of our poultry products, making them available at a more accessible price,” she says. SAFL aims to expose the power inequities in the food system and drive change. In terms of providing a fairer and smoother path from farmer to plate, Drimie says that an innovation – leading to better equality in the food system – is the development of shorter supply chains that connect farmers directly with consumers. “With short supply chains there are fewer opportunities for profiteering along the chain and farmers can shift closer to being price-makers, rather than price-takers,” he says. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), South Africa will have to double its food production by 2050 to support the needs of its
CHILD HUNGER IN SA The National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile survey shows that the proportion of respondents who reported experiencing hunger since the start of lockdown increased from 4.3 to 7.0 per cent, indicative of the risk of greater food insecurity in the country as a result of COVID-19. Just under 30 per cent of households indicated that a child had gone hungry every day or almost every day in the past week in both wave 1 and 2 of reporting, while 24 per cent of households reported this in wave 3. Before the pandemic, the National Schools Nutrition Programme (NSNP) played an important role in providing relief of child hunger. About 21 per cent of respondents indicated that children in their households were receiving school meals during July/August – for the first time since schools were closed in March – and this proportion increased to 45 per cent in November/December.
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