/ 13 September 2013

Food security alleviates poverty

The 2006 forensic report prepared for Zuma's trial that never saw the light of day ... now made available in the public interest.
The outcome of the ANC’s long-awaited KwaZulu-Natal conference was a win for the Thuma Mina crowd. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

The government has identified a strategy of putting in place — as one of the most effective ways of alleviating poverty and lessening the effects of high food prices — certain measures to see to it that some of the country’s poorest communities are able to produce food or fish for their own consumption.


Significant progress in transforming the agriculture and fishing industries in South Africa, including changes in policy, have helped to provide opportunities for some formerly disadvantaged communities.

In 2013, the implementation of the department’s integrated food and nutrition security policy realised a yield of high quality maize produced by smallholders.

Of this, 20 000 tonnes were procured by the World Food Programme.

One of the department’s strategic objectives is to increase intra-African trade, which currently stands at 10%.

Some of the recent significant changes include the Cabinet’s announcement of its approval of the Marine Living Resources Bill of 2013, in August.

In passing the Bill, the government made it possible for small-scale fishers to obtain fishing rights and regain their livelihoods.

The department’s appreciation of the role played by marine fishing in creating jobs in coastal communities meant that R434-million of its budget has been allocated to the fisheries sector, with the intention of seeing some of this allocation translating into more jobs and the restoration of the dignity of the people living in these communities.

Research has shown that the fisheries sector contributes an estimated R6-billion to the South African economy; the commercial fisheries sector employs about 27 000 people and it contributes about 0.5% to the GDP.

The sector also accounts for about 2% of the GDP in the Western Cape, the province with the highest concentration of subsistence fishers in urban and peri-urban areas.

Communities in the coastal regions of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape make up the bulk of the country’s rural subsistence fishers.

Another victory for these communities, which have previously suffered losses through land dispossessions and through being banned from fishing in certain areas, was the recent publication of the general policy on the allocation and management of fishing rights and the 2013 fishery specific policies (for demersal shark, hake handline, Kwazulu-Natal prawn trawl, oyster, squid, traditional linefish, tuna pole-line and white mussel) for general information.

The small-scale fisheries policy will boost subsistence fishers, who depend on fishing for food and income, by finally giving them formal recognition and legal protection through a rights-based allocation system.

The policy is a shift from the old system of allocating individual transfer quotas that did not recognise collectives or communities and determined where and how much they could fish.

Wholesale participation by formerly disadvantaged groups, including women, people with disabilities and young people, is encouraged; the national development plan has pegged this sector as important in its vision for an inclusive, integrated rural economy.

The formation of the new ministry has cemented the government’s commitment to not only uplifting the dignity of its people through job creation and ensuring food security, but also to managing the country’s natural resources in a way that is guaranteed to benefit generations to come.