More than three-quarters of the budget (78.2%, or R67.8-billion) is for the mammoth task of agricultural and food supply-chain reform, detailed in the recently-approved Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan. One not-insignificant obstacle is the fact that the Plan, budgeted at R86.8 billion, as of June 2022 had not yet been funded. However, several years later the Council has not yet been formed or convened, and despite assurances from the DPME that the Plan is being implemented, the fact that there are still millions of chronically hungry and otherwise malnourished people in South Africa tells a different story. Its first objective was to create the NFNSC. Given its importance, the Plan is housed within the Office of the Presidency and the DPME is overseeing the Plan’s implementation. M ore than four years into the Plan’s first five-year term, the formation of the National Food and Nutrition Security Council (NFNSC), a “single leadership and governance structure” to which all government departments are accountable and is the Plan’s first objective, has not yet been convened. Those reports, however, which Masilela described as “ quarterly internal progress reports,” are not in the public domain. In June this year, Health Outcomes Facilitator for the DPME Thulani Masilela told Maverick Citizen that “t he Food and Nutrition Security Technical Committee has consistently been implementing the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan since 2018 and reporting to Cabinet”. The 236-page document is an overarching policy that addresses all aspects of the food system, from farming to what ends up on our plates.īoth the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), and the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DFFE, responsible for “equitable access to land, integrated rural development, sustainable agriculture, and food security for all”) are central to the Plan. The National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (“the Plan”) was published in 2017, declaring that its aim was to “combat the silent crisis of malnutrition and reverse its growth in the next 15 years”. W(h)ither the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan?
More than one quarter (27%) of children under the age of five in South Africa are stunted as a result of malnutrition, resulting in lifelong physical and cognitive damage, and overall around 30 million people - half the population - are “food-stressed,” unable to afford enough nutritious food.
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