DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Millions in Need of Food Aid

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 22 2004 (IPS) - The spectres of drought and malnutrition are stalking South Africa, where more than four million people require emergency food aid. Farmers’ organisations estimate that the figure could rise to 15 million by June – this out of a population of roughly 44 million.

Rains failed in November and December, the start of the farming season in Southern Africa. Now it is just about too late to plant any crops.

The gravity of the situation was highlighted last week when President Thabo Mbeki declared parts of six of South Africa’s nine provinces disaster areas. This proclamation will allow government to appropriate more funds for emergency relief.

The provinces affected are KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, the North West, Free State and the Northern Cape. In an ironic twist, the area of Taung in the North West has also been declared a disaster zone due to the isolated thunderstorms which occurred there.

A seventh province, Limpopo, was declared a disaster area in October 2003 when the government promised around 35 million dollars for drought relief.

It is not clear how much additional money the authorities will pledge this week when the request for emergency aid is presented to cabinet for approval. But, at least 100,000 farm and seasonal workers who are now facing the axe will benefit from the funds.

At present, four million South Africans in rural areas are receiving emergency water from trucks. The government has also begun to distribute food in the worst affected provinces.

Food shortages are likely to be exacerbated still further if – as the National Chamber of Milling predicts – the price of maize meal, a staple crop, rises by 20 percent. As poor people across South Africa depend on maize meal for their survival, a price increase will ensure that the effects of drought are felt outside disaster areas as well.

Some of the emergency money will also go to South Africa’s 50,000 commercial farmers, who are an important part of the country’s economy. Agriculture accounts for about four percent of the gross domestic product, with some of the major crops being fruits, maize, wheat, sugarcane, and tobacco.

AgriSA, one of the main farming organisations, said farmers have planted 20 percent less maize this year compared with 2003.

The drought has had such a bad effect on agriculture that almost every day, one of the affected farmers is seen on the national television standing in a barren landscape, decrying the lack of rain and appealing for help.

Last week, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang acknowledged the severity of the crisis when she told senior health officials in Johannesburg that “drought increases poverty and food insecurity, leading to malnutrition and famine”.

The drought is the worst to affect South Africa in almost a century, eclipsing the dry periods of 1933 and 1966, agricultural officials say.

But, unlike countries elsewhere on the continent, no famine-related deaths have been reported in South Africa yet. And only 30,000 animals – mostly cattle – have been lost as a result of the drought, according to government officials.

The drought has also stretched across other countries in the region, including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Two weeks ago aid agencies, led by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), complained that humanitarian operations to feed around 6.5 million people in Southern Africa, excluding South Africa, were being hamstrung by a serious shortage of donor funding.

“In Lesotho we are looking at total crop failure. In parts of Mozambique the situation will be more severe than last year,” WFP spokesperson Mike Huggins told IPS this week.

The overall picture of the food situation in Southern Africa, which is further compounded by the spread of HIV/AIDS, “is bleak for the next 12 months” he said.

“When there’s no food, you lose an entire generation to AIDS. People die and leave their children to grandparents. In the process, no knowledge of farming is passed on to the children,” Huggins added.

A Christian Aid spokesperson echoed these words when he told IPS, “Delayed rains, a lack of seeds and fertilisers, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic have impacted heavily on agricultural recovery in the poorest communities.”

“Deepening poverty in the region continues to increase the risk to both urban and rural people of food shortages.”

The spokesperson added that starving people in Southern Africa remained vulnerable to continuing food shortages and would require some form of food aid until June this year.