Felix Reinders
ARC-Institute for Agricultural Engineering
Food security is part of section 27 of the Constitutional Rights in South Africa. On these rights, the Constitution states that every citizen has the right to
have access to sufficient food and water, and that “the state must by legislation and other measures, within its available resources, avail to progressive realisation of the right to sufficient food”.
S
outh Africa faces the following key food security
challenges to name but a few:
to ensure that enough food is available to all, now
and in the future;
to match incomes of people to prices in order to
ensure access to sufficient food for every citizen;
to empower citizens to make optimal choices for
nutritious and safe food;
to ensure that there is adequate safety nets and
food emergency management systems to provide
people that are unable to meet their food needs
from their own efforts and mitigate the extreme
impact of natural or other disasters on people;
In this regard water play an important role because
water gives life and is crucial to food production and
development. It waters the fields; nurtures the crops
and stock; provides recreation; it support mines, industry; electricity generation and it provide life for plants
and animals that make up ecosystems. The biggest
share of water (70% in the world and 62% in South
Africa) is used for agricultural production. Agriculture is
also the key for rural development and poverty reduc-
tion, although it is currently not the major source for
rural livelihoods. Water use for food production must
therefore be analysed as a value-adding process, with
emphasis on the business and employment opportunities which are created.
Poor access to reliable, safe and affordable water for
food and livelihood creation poses a poverty trap for
239 million poor people in rural parts of Africa. See
Figure 1. The water crisis is worsened by rapid population growth, urbanization and increased economic development. To a large extent the water crisis has more
to do with managing water resources badly than with a
lack of adequate resources. Therefore, there is a need
to adopt a water management approach that accounts
for the whole water-cycle.
Through applying appropriate agricultural engineering
technology in South Africa by performing engineering
technology research, development, application, infrastructure implementation, transfer and the evaluation
of equipment and systems for unique Sub-Saharan conditions, agricultural sustainability can be substantially