WORLD FOOD DAY EDITORIAL: Hungry by design: hunger must be on the ballot on 4 November

The national food plan has lapsed, the coordinating council never met, and children are dying in our hospitals of preventable malnutrition. On World Food Day, hunger belongs on the ballot.

Who would have thought that a key local government election campaign linchpin would be a clear and coherent strategy for how political parties plan to tackle hunger. Although I suppose not so surprising because South Africa’s runaway hunger problem is a powder keg primed and ready to go off at the slightest provocation.

It is simply unacceptable that at last check Stats SA’s general household survey recorded that in 2025, 9.4 million of our people went hungry in a country that most certainly does not have a food production issue. What we have instead, is f ood going to waste and a malnutrition issue as a result of the inaccessibility of healthy foods and oversaturation of unhealthy ultra-processed foods and drinks.

This manifests in 22% of households not having access to adequate food, with the Northern Cape being the highest at 43%, followed by 32.3% in North West and 30.8% in the Eastern Cape.

Earlier this year my colleagues Lillian Roberts and Daniélle Schaafsma meticulously mapped just how deep the crisis extends across the country, highlighting that 74.8% of black South Africans are living below the upper-bound poverty line, and as such experience hunger the most acutely, a reflection of the country’s continued inequality across racial lines.

But perhaps the most grotesque finding in our landscape is how we are allowing hunger to cannibalise our children, with chronic malnutrition resulting in stunting that is 5% higher than the global average, at 27%. Answering questions in Parliament, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said that more than 450 children under five died in public hospitals with malnutrition as an underlying condition within nine months of 2025.

But what our food justice coverage has been mapping and unravelling is that our hunger is not some uncontrollable phenomenon over which we have no power. It is orchestrated by our food systems being concentrated in the hands of a few large players, where the Competition Commission has uncovered price-fixing cartels in staples from bread to maize meal. But beyond food just being unaffordable, what is critical is that people are being starved of healthy and nutritious food.

On one end, we have people being squeezed by ever-increasing food prices, forcing them to buy cheap and unhealthy food, and on the other hand, the practical inability of people to grow their own food as an alternative. Because while food gardens are great, not everyone has access to enough space to plant and grow the diverse fruit and vegetables required for a healthy diet.

And yet the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan sits collecting dust, having expired in 2023 after being largely unfunded, it’s coordinating council having never met. A replacement remains in draft, uncosted and without a budget.