South Africa Food Insecurity Deepened Last Year as Inflation Bit

The number of people in South Africa able to meet their minimum nutritional needs slipped last year, as a weak economy and inflationary pressures hit households and deepened food insecurity.

A Food Security Index commissioned by Africa’s largest grocer, Shoprite Holdings Ltd., shows South Africa was only 45.3% food secure in 2023. That was the lowest reading in the series since 2012 and was down from a peak of 64.6% in 2019.

“After 30 years of democracy, it is unfathomable that hunger remains one of the top socio-economic issues facing our country,” Shoprite Chief Sustainability Officer Sanjeev Raghubir said in a report published on Wednesday.

Three decades after the end of White-minority rule in 1994, South Africa remains a deeply unequal nation. While it is Africa’s biggest and most-industrialized economy, unemployment is above 30% and two-thirds of its residents live in poverty — most of them Black.

High food prices

High food prices hit poor families the hardest, with food inflation averaging 10.7% in 2023. That was due to the impact of a combination of factors, including higher commodity prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and adverse weather affecting harvests.

The stickiness of food prices also contributed to slow progress in curbing overall cost pressures, with headline inflation averaging 6% in 2023. But food inflation has since more than halved to a 4.1% annual rate in August, with headline inflation slowing to 4.4%.

“Food inflation is really a problem,” said Dieter von Fintel, a professor of economics at the University of Stellenbosch, which conducted the survey. “Salaries are growing slower and households are losing jobs, but food prices are growing much quicker. This is a real problem for households.”

Elevated price pressures prompted the South African Reserve Bank to maintain tight monetary policy to achieve its goal of keeping inflation near the mid-point of its 3% to 6% target range. It raised interest rates to a 15-year high of 8.25% in May 2023 and only began easing policy last month, when it lowered the benchmark gauge by 25 basis points to 8%.

“Even though hunger has reduced over the long run in South Africa, we still have a problem that one in 10 of all households have children that experience hunger,” Von Fintel said. Among the poorest households that ratio is even worse, with one in four having children that go hungry, he said.

The report found that 25% of South African children were growth stunted, a similar number to children in neighboring Zimbabwe, which is significantly poorer. Households also reported the lowest food variety since 2019, with 23% fewer homes consuming a diverse set of food because of economic hardship.