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A food security and nutrition indaba held in Benoni on Friday expected to outline steps the government will take this year to eradicate hunger in the country.
The indaba comes a few months after eight provinces were declared disaster areas due to the severe drought.
And while recent rains have provided farmers in hard-hit areas such as the Northern Free-State with much-needed respite from the dry spell, the two-day forum hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries alongside the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations now aims to look into how South Africans can access food – not just any but nutritious and affordable food.
According to a general household survey released by Statistics South Africa, the number of people who have little or no access to food went up from 12.6 million in 2011 to 14.3 million in 2015.
Unicef also indicated that malnutrition contributed to nearly half of the deaths of children under five in Africa and Asia, adding poor nutrition in the first 1 000 days of a child’s life leads to stunted growth, impacts on children's cognitive ability and reduces their school performance.
Delegates at the conference have so far discussed the purpose of the Food Plan, what it means as well as the impact nutritious food will have on poverty-stricken communities.
The Food Plan was presented before Parliament in November and is yet to be legislated into law.
They have also spoken on the challenges facing the country such as lack of purchasing power by low-income households, weak disaster management systems and farmer support networks who all crumbled under pressure last year and were unable to adequately assist struggling farmers during the drought or help families hit by famine.
"The right to food is entrenched in section 27 of the constitution. This obliges the state to take all necessary steps, including passing legislation, to enable citizens to meet their basic food needs. South Africa is committed to international declarations such as the Sustainable Development Goals as these are aligned to the 20130 vision of the country's National Development Goal," the department's director-general Mike Mlengana said.
Mlengana pointed out that to guarantee that the population will have access to food, questions need to be asked around the production of food supply and distribution. He said physical and economic food access only exists when every individual is able to obtain food in a socially acceptable manner such as the proper production of meals and through approved forms of hunting.
The departments of Health, Social Development, Basic Education, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation also form part of the Indaba.