Food protests in Joburg and Cape Town

Union Against Hunger marked World Food Day by marching to Shoprite in Centurion, Gauteng, and to the Cape Town International Convention Centre, demanding affordable food prices on essential items.

In Johannesburg, picketers outside Shoprite Distribution Park in Centurion on Thursday called on retail giant Shoprite to lower prices on ten essential food items to help struggling South Africans afford basic nutrition.

On Friday, Cape Town activists and community-based organisations, including soup kitchens, protested outside the Social Justice Summit hosted by Stellenbosch University.

Johannesburg

Esther Padi, national organiser of Union Against Hunger (UAH), said the campaign is gathering signatures on a petition urging Shoprite to reduce the prices of staple foods, such as eggs, milk, soya, and maize meal. Shoprite is being targeted because it is a major retailer in South Africa, particular in poorer areas she explained. “If they respond positively to our call, we believe other retailers will follow suit,” said Padi.

She emphasized that the campaign is not asking for a blanket price cut on all items, but rather on key nutritional essentials. “We’re currently facing a crisis where 20-million South Africans cannot afford to buy food. We are simply saying: please drop the prices. The economy is very bad, and South Africans can’t afford these high costs.”

Hundreds picketed outside the Shoprite distribution centre in Centurion on Thursday. Photo by Simon Ramapuputla

The General Industrial Workers Union of South Africa (Giwusa) president, Mametle Sebei said that 60% of workers earn the minimum wage or less. The truth is that a basic food basket now costs around R5,000 –roughly equivalent to the minimum wage itself. If that’s the cost of food alone, where are people supposed to find money for transport, housing, and other essentials? Sebei asked.

This country has become unaffordable for the working class and the poor. If the system cannot afford them, then they cannot afford a system like this.

Sebei argued that major retailers and corporations must be brought under the democratic control of workers and communities to ensure that the food industry serves its real purpose: feeding people, not enriching a handful of shareholders and corporate elites.

Zintle Tyuku, an organiser at Amandla.mobi, said she joined the picket against Shoprite to deliver a petition demanding action on South Africa’s rising food prices. “We came here to submit our petition, our demands, and our memorandum because food prices in South Africa are way too high,” said Tyuku. The food industry maintains high retail prices despite falls in agricultural production costs. “Even when prices go down at the farm level, they don’t reduce the prices in stores. They keep making profits while communities continue to go hungry,” she said.

Claude Sathyanandam, Shoprite’s supply chain divisional head for inland division received the memorandum but did not make any commitments in response.

In Cape Town

Monica Speelman, who runs a soup kitchen in Morkel Cottage in Strand, said that hunger is bad in the informal settlement because of unemployment and that the grant money including the social relief of distress (SRD) grant is not enough to ensure that people have food for the entire month.

“I stay in an informal settlement that has no electricity, water or sanitation and we do not have access to food. Its worse for us who have two or more kids. Sometimes there is not even porridge for children to eat before they go to school and they go to school on an empty stomach. The school nutrition programme plays a huge role in helping our children,” said Funeka Ntshenca from Taiwan informal settlement in Khayelitsha.

Mandisa Khanyile from We The 99 Movement said that most households in South Africa are led by single women and the child support grants are not enough to buy food for the whole month because the prices of staple food is not affordable. “It’s a struggle that is gendered – it’s a struggle that is based on economic status but it is also a struggle that is racialised, because it’s black poor women who have to deal with the struggle of not knowing what they are going to feed their children at the end of the day. Us allowing white monopoly capital to decide food prices in this country is a crime. Food is a human right and we are not treating it as such,” she said.

The protesters called on government to halve the volume of food waste – currently 10-million tonnes every year, equivalent to 30-billion meals – by 2030. Photo by Mzi Velapi

Nzama Mbalati from Healthy Living Alliance (Heala) said that the high levels of hunger, food insecurity, and obesity in South Africa are the consequences of the country’s broken food system. “There is hunger of people not having food at all. We also have a particular interest as Heala of people who are actually hungry because they have eaten food of poor quality. We also know that food of poor quality results in ill-health. The growing epidemic of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart diseases is a result of food with a high content of saturated fat, sugar and salt. We also want to be part of the mobilisation so we can bring that sensitisation and demand that the government responds in key policies that can limit the risk of people’s exposure to unhealthy food and products,” he said.

Nazier Sonday from the Philippi Horticultural Area Food and Farming Campaign said they joined the protest in solidarity with millions of people and households who do not have access to food. They also want the Cape Town mayor not to approve the re-zoning of the ‘Oakland City’ development because it would destroy their farming area. “If he approves it then he would be responsible for creating more hunger and poverty in our city,” he said.

Sonday said that 60% of produce from the small-scale farmers in the Phillipi area is sold through informal markets, making it more affordable and accessible to low-income communities, while the remaining 40% enter formal markets.

The organisers had earlier announced that the former Public Protector and now the chair of social justice at Stellenbosch University, Thuli Madonsela would come out of the justice summit to accept the memorandum, but she did not appear.

Coordinator of the Movement for CARE (Movement for Collective Action and Racial Equity), Nkosikhona Swaartbooi criticised Madonsela and Ramaphosa for snubbing the protesters and said that they would deliver the memorandum to Madonsela’s place of residence if necessary. Mark Heywood from UAH said that perhaps Madonsela should be invited to the communities to collect the memorandum there.