During March 2026, the South African Human Rights Commission held the National Investigative Hearing Into The Food Systems of South Africa. Some people referred to these as the hunger hearings. At the heart of the hearings was concern over the high levels of hunger in South Africa, despite the wealth in the country and the availability of food.
In his State of the Nation address on 12 February 2026, President Ramaphosa did not mention hunger or the levels of food insecurity in the country. However, he did acknowledge that the Constitution requires the state to “progressively realise the right of all South Africans to… food”. He also claimed that “by expanding our social protection system through the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant, we have reduced the number of people living in food poverty.” And that “the SRD Grant has kept millions of South Africans out of food poverty”. The President went on to point out the important fact that “most of the money provided through social grants is spent on food and transport.”
The National Food and Nutrition Security Survey carried out in 2023 found that 63.5% of households in South Africa experienced some level of food insecurity. That is tens of millions of people who face a daily challenge of finding sufficient food to eat, with 17.5% “experiencing severe food insecurity”. Not only are these levels of food insecurity unacceptably high, but they are also getting worse; for example, the prevalence of undernourishment has gone from 3.3% in 2006-06 to 10% in 2022-24. This despite the constitutional obligation and grants mentioned by President Ramaphosa.
The extreme outcome of this is children dying of hunger. In a recent 18-month period, 973 children died from malnutrition in hospitals; that is close to two children every day. It has been estimated that the real number of children dying from hunger could be ten times that—close to 20 children a day—when taking into account malnutrition as an underlying cause. In addition to those who die, more than one in four children are stunted by the age of five due to poor nutrition. These children are affected for life, never reaching their full potential.
It is hard to understand how this is being allowed to happen.
Funding inadequate
It is interesting that President Ramaphosa referred to the SRD grant keeping people from “food poverty”, given that the government’s “food poverty line” is R855 per month. This is the amount the government says a person needs to simply buy sufficient calories and nothing else. Food and nutrition experts argue that this does not constitute a healthy diet, which needs more than calories. Even so, this food poverty line is, as surely the president must know, more than twice the SRD grant of R370 per month. The recently increased child support grant (CSG), at R580 per month, is also substantially (R275 per month) below the food poverty line. The SRD grant and the CSG are no doubt helping many to survive, but not with adequate diets and not with dignity.
Further, given that the president knows that people in poverty, including grant recipients, spend a high proportion of their limited money on food, one would have expected that the value of these grants would keep up with food inflation. They don’t. In February this year, the CSG increased by 3.6% and pensions by 3.4%, yet the most recent food inflation data at the time (the January 2026 figures) showed food inflation was 4.4%.
Simply put, people depending on pensions and CSGs, let alone the SRD grant that was not adjusted at all, were already struggling to buy enough food a year ago. Now they can afford even less.
Hunger in unexpected places
The blight of hunger permeates many parts of society that are often not considered particularly vulnerable. For example, as shared at the SAHRC hearings, university students from the poorest households often face hunger. This significantly undermines their studies. In turn, this reduces the benefit of higher education for those affected and holds back skills development for the nation. In the worst scenarios, young people remain trapped in intergenerational poverty when they drop out of university due to hunger; this despite their academic potential.
The state provides support to students from the poorest households through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and the National Research Foundation for postgraduate students. Yet, these grants are often inadequate to cover all costs, including a healthy diet. Worse, the annual delays in the distribution of these grants leave thousands of students struggling for months to find food.
Why is this happening?
Quite a number of other African countries perform better in key indicators of hunger, such as the prevalence of undernourishment and stunting. These include countries such as Senegal and Ghana, with smaller economies per person than South Africa. The reasons for this appear to be the high levels of inequality in South Africa. This includes the corporate domination and concentration of ownership in the food system; the majority of the population has limited access to land and economic opportunities. Compared to South Africa, most African countries have far larger ‘informal’ sectors. More people have access to land, and there are more public food markets and opportunities for street vendors and other micro-enterprises.
Leading up to and following the end of apartheid in 1994, there was widespread liberalisation of the South African economy and food system. That included its integration into the global economic order. The state commodity boards and regulations that had supported a privileged minority were dismantled rather than repurposed to better meet the needs of the majority. Those who had benefited during the apartheid era were in the best position to take advantage of the liberalisation. This was especially the case as land and other redistributive reforms have been ineffective. The result is that the food system has become more unequal post-apartheid, with a few corporations and investment funds now owning ever larger shares of it.
Within the corporate-dominated parts of the food system, returns to labour have shrunk in comparison to returns on capital. More money has gone into mechanisation and computerisation, while labour has been casualised and remains super-exploited. This applies from farm workers to supermarket cashiers. Farm workers and their families have some of the highest levels of hunger and food insecurity, in particular through hunger seasons when workers are not needed on the farms.
This is one of the most stark examples of how the costs of reproduction are not covered by the employers in the agrifood sector. When farms don’t need labour, workers turn to the state to survive on inadequate grants, only to be called back to farms when they are needed. Thus, the state grants, while also helping workers survive, essentially subsidise the farms, which do not cover the full cost of the survival of the labour they depend on. This also highlights the point that interventions to make food more affordable should not be at the expense of those who work to produce and distribute the food.
The state is responding, but inadequately
There is much that the government is doing to address hunger. The grants system, despite its limitations touched on above, is the most important intervention to help people survive. The National School Nutrition Programme provides a cooked meal to around nine million learners every school day.
But big gaps remain in the state response to hunger, made worse by the lack of coherence across the many different interventions. The first thousand days, that is, from conception until the child is two years old, have long been confirmed as the most important for good nutrition, to ensure the full and healthy development of every child. Yet, the support across these first thousand days is limited and fragmented. There is little available for pregnant mothers, many of whom lose jobs or business income in their last months of pregnancy. The CSG is often only obtained some months into the child’s life, and there are many challenges in obtaining it. This is especially the case for women in poverty and with small babies, as they need to travel to government offices to apply, and it takes several months for the grant to be provided. Thus, women, and through them their babies, often experience hunger in the last months of pregnancy and the first months of newborn babies’ lives. Not all children are in early childhood development (ECD) centres, and not all ECD centres receive the government subsidy to assist with child nutrition. This leaves many babies and children with no direct nutrition support during key development phases of their lives.
No effective plan
There was a five-year National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (NFNSP) for the period 2018 to 2023. The evaluation of that plan showed that it was largely not implemented and thus not effective. Among other reasons for this was the failure to establish the National Food and Nutrition Security Council (NFNSC), which was supposed to drive and coordinate the implementation. Another key factor was the lack of specific budget commitments for the plan.
Work has been underway for almost two years now to write the new NFNSP. Having been part of this process, I appreciate the efforts made by the National Department of Agriculture (NDA) to draft the new plan and to include a range of stakeholders and experts in this process. The unfortunate reality, however, is that at this point (March 2026), the country has had no plan in place for achieving the constitutionally mandated right to food (food and nutrition security for all) for over two years. Further, the NFNSC is still not established, and there is no sign of any new budget commitments for food and nutrition security.
A shift is needed
The state has to embrace the constitutional reality that it has a central role in ending hunger and ensuring that the right to food is fulfilled. Ending hunger cannot be left to market forces in a corporate-dominated and highly unequal economy, where profits for investors are being prioritised over people’s health and the lives of thousands of children each year. The state needs to intervene in a systematic fashion for the benefit of all, especially the most vulnerable.
Spending on ensuring food and nutrition security, especially in the first thousand days, will save the country money in the long run and improve the human resources of the country that are essential for a more prosperous future.
Among other interventions, social assistance grants, in particular the CSG, must be aligned with the cost of a healthy diet, which is higher than the current food poverty line. The food purchasing power of these grants must be protected by adjusting them annually at least in line with food inflation. Comprehensive nutrition support is needed to ensure that all pregnant women and newborn babies have access to good nutrition. This could involve pregnant mothers being able to apply for and receive the CSG before their child is born, or there could be a new pregnancy grant.
Along with providing grants, the state needs to intervene in the economy to manage food prices and improve the affordability of key foods. This needs a holistic approach informed by good research. In this way, a package of interventions can have a real impact without causing unintended consequences. For example, farmers, farm workers and other workers in the food system must not bear the cost of improving food affordability.
Giving more people access to land, along with opening the regulatory and physical space, including local markets for many more food vendors and food processors, can be a critical intervention. It would help to improve food affordability and accessibility. It would also enable greater numbers of people in poverty to create livelihoods for themselves with the food system. Such a food affordability policy framework should be part of the NFNSP that must be finalised, budgeted for, and implemented. We await the promised NFNSC that needs to drive coordinated implementation and will need to include strong leadership from government and non-state actors.
Citizens and their organisations need to organise to take action to improve food security in their families and communities, and to demand action to end hunger. The Union Against Hunger is one initiative that people who care about hunger can join and support. Consumer organisations, religious groups, student movements, trade unions and many others all have an interest in ending hunger, and if united, can make a change.
Marc Wegerif is an Associate Professor and Development Studies programme coordinator at the University of Pretoria. He is also a Principal Investigator with the DSTI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security. He writes in his personal capacity.
