Fourteen million South Africans go hungry in a land of plenty

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World Food Day on 16 October also marks SA Harvest’s seventh birthday, a year during which they’ve rescued over 4,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables (apart from dry foodstuffs) to supply soup kitchens, early childhood development centres and other community-driven food distribution points. SA Harvest has enabled over 123.4 million meals since inception, coming to just under 31 million kilograms of food distributed pro bono to recipients; nourishment that would otherwise probably have gone to waste.

“South Africa’s hunger problem is not a scarcity problem,” says Graham Guthrie, head of procurement. “It’s a system failure.” SA Harvest estimates that 17 million South Africans experience hunger daily, quoting the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s data that one in four children are stunted as a result of malnutrition.

This season, SA Harvest has been a major force in diverting oranges from dumpsters this season when exports became uneconomical due to global geopolitics and rising fuel and other costs. The Valencia season is winding down, with final oranges being rescued from KwaZulu-Natal.

© SA Harvest
Residents of a Johannesburg old age home with the vegetables they’d received from SA Harvest

According to the KwaZulu-Natal-based Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group and the Human Sciences Research Council, an estimated 14 million people in South Africa go to bed hungry. Under pressure from food costs, low-income households turn to cheaper staples, often at the expense of dietary diversity as fruit, vegetables, dairy and protein are reduced.

As summer approaches, the non-profit is collecting mainly vegetables, Guthrie says: cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, beetroot, mushrooms, turnips, leeks, and potatoes. “We have a steady season supply of blueberries too,” he adds.

Farmers make up over a quarter of their Food Partners (28%), and they are always forging new relationships with farmers and packhouses, but often while the will is not lacking, the logistics to get it from outlying farms to SA Harvest’s distribution points are challenging to overcome.

© SA Harvest

For more information:
Graham Guthrie, head: procurement
SA Harvest
Tel: +27 82 308 9102
Email: [email protected]
https://saharvest.org/

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Source: The Plantations International Agroforestry Group of Companies