SA's unemployment rate and the high cost of food mean many people go hungry. We look at how the R6 food challenge can raise awareness around this.
#6Rand is a symbolic campaign that Mail & Guardian launched this week after years of all our reporters touching on aspects of poverty and food security. Also, today is the UN’s World Food Day, and nearly a billion people worldwide and 14-million in South Africa go to bed hungry.
We took the inspiration for this number from a family of four – twin sisters, each with a child – who live outside Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. They do odd jobs. And when they have work, they buy four potatoes and a cup of rice with the R6 that they have. This covers their day’s food.
When the twins do not have R6, they share a white bread loaf and sugary water. This meal is quite common and is called the “poppie water diet” in the area. A large number of South Africans do not have access to enough food because of their economic circumstances. And when they do have food, it is not nutritious. This is the case for 14-million South Africans and the 2012 General Household Survey states that many do not know where their next meal is coming from.
Our official unemployment rate of 25% and the high cost of healthy food mean that people in this country are starving. Various branches of government are dealing with this. The department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries has a Food Security Policy. But even this admits that it would be good to have an Act to unify efforts. READ MORE
Source: www.mg.co.za
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