GAUTENG
COMMENT, by Pete Bower
MAGAZINE
HOW TO MAKE YOUR PLOT PROFITABLE
Vol 18 No 7
July 2017
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FRONT COVER
As good as the original: a depiction of a
national botanical garden ~ part of the
Sanbi Kirstenbosch Chelsea Flower
Show exhibit, reconstructed at Garden
World in Muldersdrift.
# SAFoodCrisis: Get this
I
t is well-understood that South Africa has many pressing problems,
but you would be wrong to think that Jacob Zuma, the Guptas,
corruption or the parlous state of the economy are the biggest and
most pressing that we face. And you would be equally wrong if you
thought it was our dreadful education system, crime, unemployment or the threat of
fracking in the Karroo.
For while it is true that Jacob Zuma and his cronies are conspiring to turn this country
into the biggest banana republic Africa has ever seen, there is an issue so big, so
historic, so complex and so all-encompassing that, if we as active citizens don't do our
bit to rectify it, the crisis will lead to the death of thousands and the collapse of the
country. Literally.
We're referring to what we will call the food crisis , for want of a better name.
While it's not really a crisis in that it hasn't suddenly arisen, but has in fact been a part
of South African life for many decades, it is without a doubt slowly getting worse and
will one day develop into a full-blown crisis of epic proportions.
Because we can’t go on like we are. For example, the billions disbursed each month to
Social Grant recipients constitute not only the recipients’ only real income, and thus
the only wherewithal that they have with which to buy food, but also represents a
sizeable chunk of the country’s gross national product ~ its cash-flow, if you like.
But there are now more social grant recipients in South Africa than there are people in
formal employment, and the number of grant recipients is more than three times the
number of individual taxpayers in the country. Does that sound like a sensible,
sustainable situation? We don’t think so.
But what food crisis are we talking about, you may ask? There is food on shop shelves,
the recent good rains have seen to it that there will be a heartening surplus of maize
(the price of which has halved as a result) and starvation is really not the problem it
was a few decades ago. So what's the problem?
Well, the first problem is that there's not just one problem, but a myriad of interrelated
issues affecting farmers, farm workers and consumers ~ you and me ~ alike.
The simplest and most visible way to see this issue is to ask yourself the question, “why
does my food shopping bill seem higher every time I visit the supermarket?” But if you
were a farm worker you may ask “why are my wages so low?” and if you were a
farmer you'd be asking “why am I paid so little for my produce?”
We believe that too few people are aware of, and angry about, the problems in the
food industry. We also believe that the politicians have abrogated their responsibilities
in relation to the Constitution, choosing rather to take cover behind the convenient
phrase “food security.” And we believe that the time has come for us as citizens to take
matters into our own hands and force the necessary changes to take place. But we can
only do that if we are fully informed as to the nature and scale of the problem.
As a result, the Smallholder will, over the next few months, be publishing a series of
articles with a common theme of #SAFoodCrisis. These will draw on a recently-
published book by agri-economist and activist Dr Tracy Ledger entitled An Empty Plate
which, if you are interested, we urge you to read (order it from Loot or Takealot.com),
and various discussion papers and government reports.
Our articles will look at seemingly unrelated issues such as inequality, unemployment
and wages, the parlous state of the farming industry, land restitution and why so many
new Black farmers fail, the food value chain and agricultural marketing, corporate
greed, nutrition and nutrition education, public health and social security, the futility of
charitable works and grow-your-own efforts, government policy and the wrong
assumptions upon which many of these policies are founded, and even economic
theory and philosophy.
Why are we going to all this effort on this one subject? For two reasons. Firstly because
problems in the food sector affect all of us, rich and poor, black and white, as consum-
ers and citizens. And secondly because the development of a thriving smallholder
farmer sector (of which by our very name we are part) will not succeed unless various
aspects of agricultural policy are changed.
Thus, for us, it's become a personal fight, and we have become increasingly angry and
alarmed and the way we are heading as a country. And for you, too, it should become
personal because you are being fleeced each time you buy food and although you
don't know it yet, there is going to come a time when there are insufficient farmers left
to produce the food you consume unless you become angry and alarmed, too.
SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE GAUTENG SMALLHOLDER