Hunger in a land of plenty: A human rights violation and why South Africa must act now:
Nine million three hundred and forty thousand, that’s how many South Africans went hungry in 2023. Behind this number are parents going to bed on empty stomachs so their children can eat. It’s children arriving at school too hungry to concentrate, their futures already compromised before they’ve begun. It’s families trapped in impossible choices — pay rent or buy food, keep the lights on or put bread on the table.
According to Stats SA the average South African household spends 40% of their income on food. Yet despite this reality, there is no dedicated social grant support for food, a glaring omission in a country where hunger is rapidly deepening. The face of food insecurity has changed. Once seen as a rural issue, hunger is now deeply entrenched in our cities. In Gauteng, the country’s economic engine, food insecurity germinates in the shadow of prosperity.
In Johannesburg, 24.7% of households are food insecure — that’s about 1.48 million people. In Ekurhuleni, 17.1% of residents face food insecurity, and in Tshwane, the figure is 14.1%. Meanwhile, Johannesburg’s average household food basket cost in February 2025 was R5446,07, that’s R132.85 more than the national average. This is in a country where the median salary was recorded as R5417 in 2022.
Put simply, for many in Gauteng, the cost of survival now exceeds their means.
This crisis is not about food shortages, South Africa produces enough food to feed its population. The problem lies in distribution, affordability, availability and accessibility. And nowhere is this failure clearer than in the staggering amount of food that goes to waste.
Every year, South Africa discards 10 million tonnes of food, that’s enough to feed those nine million hungry people many times over. Perfectly edible food is thrown away not because it’s spoiled, but because our systems prioritise profit over people. This is not just inefficient, it’s immoral.
This Human Rights Day, we must confront this crisis for what it is: a violation of one of the most basic rights enshrined in our Constitution — the right to sufficient food and water. The Constitution is clear: access to food is not a privilege; it is a fundamental human right. Yet for millions of South Africans, this right remains out of reach.
This crisis demands urgent, coordinated intervention. Food insecurity is not just about poverty. It is about systems that fail to deliver food where it is needed most. We know that South Africa produces enough food to feed its population, yet millions go without. This is a failure of distribution, affordability, and policy.
One of the most immediate and effective interventions is to address food waste.
It is imperative that we adopt a new approach. One that treats food waste not as an unfortunate by-product of our food system, but as a crisis that demands legislative solutions. Countries like France and Italy have passed laws requiring supermarkets and food retailers to donate unsold yet still edible food to charities. These measures have dramatically reduced waste while ensuring food reaches those who need it most.
But legislation alone will not end hunger. This goal will be pursued through practical initiatives like expanding urban agriculture, promoting community food gardens, and improving access to affordable fresh produce. We must also strengthen partnerships with organisations already working to feed those in need.
Ending hunger will require more than well-intentioned projects, it demands systemic change. We must redesign our food systems to ensure they are inclusive, accessible, and sustainable.
For too long, hunger has been treated as an unfortunate symptom of poverty — a social issue left to charities and volunteers. This mindset must change. Hunger is a crisis that requires political will and decisive action.
We cannot allow this crisis to continue in a country that produces enough food to feed its people. We cannot accept a reality where parents must choose which child will eat tonight. We cannot stand by while children’s futures are stolen by hunger.
Food is not a luxury. It is not a privilege. It is a human right. One that must be realised for all South Africans.
The question is not whether we can end hunger — it’s whether we are willing to act now.
Vuyiswa Ramokgopa is the Gauteng MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development
Mr President, the people have not agreed to amend Zambia’s Constitution ahead of the 2026 elections:
The ruling United Party for National Development (UPND), in particular its leader President Hakainde Hichilema (HH), would do well to listen to Zambians’ views on amendments to the Constitution without the consent of the people.
Zambians found out about the draft amendments to the Constitution just a few days ago, when the president officiated at a Women’s Day event. Hichilema said: “The Zambian people have now agreed to amend the Constitution.” This was a shocking statement because most Zambians were not aware of its existence, much less the process of how the government came up with such a document.
Later on, Hichilema doubled down on this issue during Youth Day activities, saying the youths have agreed to such constitutional amendments before the 2026 general elections.
This is nothing but dishonesty on the part of HH and his government, because he knows too well that neither himself nor his government have consulted the young people of this country regarding any amendments to the Constitution.
This is the same Constitution under which HH came into power in 2021, so what is wrong with it now? Why the rush to amend it just before the 2026 elections? If this Constitution was good in 2021, and the government sustained it for the past four years in power, what has suddenly gone wrong with it? And now this regime wants to amend the Constitution without the full participation of all Zambians either through a referendum or a constitutional review commission.
The Hichilema administration would do well to be honest with the people for once, by establishing a modus vivendi — especially with those people who disagree with the regime and perhaps did not vote for the UPND in the previous elections. This is vital to the restoration of public trust and confidence.
The argument being advanced by the president as to why Zambia should amend the Constitution does not hold water. The man wants us to believe that he is doing this for the women and youths, in the context of bringing proportional representation (PR) to parliament. He is on public record arguing that he needs a specific number of seats reserved for women and youth in parliament through what he calls a PR system — except he is confusing a PR system with a quota system of governance.
Mr President Sir, in a PR system, no parliamentary seats are reserved for any specific group of people. Instead, parliamentary seats are allocated to political parties based on their performance and the percentage votes acquired in an election. And usually people vote for a political party and not for a candidate. President Hichilema, with all due respect, it appears that you have not paid attention to the details of what constitutes a PR system and how it differs from a quota system. An apple is not an orange, and an orange cannot be an apple, even though both are fruit.
If HH really meant what he said, why didn’t his party, the UPND, have more women and youths as candidates in the general elections of 2021, particularly in its stronghold areas? Because, during that time, the wind of change was blowing countrywide and anyone who participated in that election under the banner of the UPND stood a chance to win. He and his party should have been the first people to champion more women to contest as MPs, mayors or council chairpersons and councillors. Instead, women given nothing but tokenism when he hand-picked Madam Mutale Nalumango as a running mate. That was the illusion of the inclusion of women.
Even after winning the 2021 election, the Constitution empowers the president to nominate eight MPs. How many women and youths did HH nominate? Instead, he recycled old recycled male politicians and gave only two of the eight seats to women and none to youths.
The truth is HH has seen the writing on the wall and knows too well that he has to get rid of the 50+1 clause in the Constitution if he is to win in 2026.
Hichilema’s schemes must be stopped. He should instead deal with the economic hardships that are pressing our people and not obsess about returning power in 2026.
To the young people of Zambia, please do not allow yourselves to be used and abused by this regime. This man promised you heaven on Earth before he was elected, but he has failed to address the high levels of unemployment. He has failed to create sustainable jobs and his government has even blamed you for not being productive.
Hichilema should learn from his counterpart, President Duma Boko of Botswana, who is a man already walking the talk. He appointed many young people and women to key ministerial positions, including a 26-year-old woman as a cabinet minister. Unlike HH, Boko also appointed many young people and women as diplomats.
Hichilema has said he is only bringing up this issue of amending the Constitution now because he has been so busy dealing with debt restructuring and fixing the economy. Is the president really serious? Does he mean these issues are mutually exclusive and can only be done one at a time? And what economy has he fixed? The young people should not let Hichilema get away with his plot. The Socialist Party of Zambia had women and youths as candidates for public office in 2021, a record that the UPND cannot match. This agenda of amending the Constitution is not about women or the youth, it’s about HH weakening the supreme law of the land and changing clauses to favour him in the 2026 general elections.
Last, the UPND government should know that Zambians can forgive them for many things that are wrong in the country. But the one thing that the people will never forgive is the UPND going ahead and messing around with the Constitution. They should learn from their predecessor, the Patriotic Front government and the fall of Bill 10, which aimed to remove parliamentary oversight over the executive, which would have resulted in a constitutional dictatorship. Your Excellency Dr Hichilema, you don’t have to be a genius to know that Zambians are very sensitive when it comes to amending the Constitution, just look to history for reference.
Aaron Ng’ambi is a geopolitical analyst and columnist, leadership instructor and a social entrepreneur. aaronngambi@yahoo.com
Cannabis hopes go up in smoke:
The department of health’s recent unilateral ban on all “foodstuffs” made with any part of the cannabis plant, including hemp and cannabidiol (CBD), is unconstitutional, ill-informed and an embarrassment for South Africa, industry experts have said.
Organisations working in the sector have demanded that the department reverse the prohibition immediately or face litigation.
The department quietly gazetted the ban on 7 March, nearly two months after it was signed on 17 January, without public participation. This was despite President Cyril Ramaphosa flagging the opportunities linked to cannabis in his State of the Nation address last month.
During a webinar on Tuesday, the director of food control at the department of health Penny Campbell said the ban prohibits labelling contents that contain CBD or tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as “foodstuff”.
CBD and THC are both chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant. CBD is known for its therapeutic uses, including to treat pain, anxiety and inflammation, and does not cause a high, while THC does have a psychoactive effect.
Campbell said manufacturers and retailers must comply with the department’s labelling regulations, and other hygiene and safety regulations, for foodstuff.
“The intention is not to ban them, but to make sure that the contents of those products are acceptable, they are safe, and they are [kept] from children,” she said, adding that manufacturers were required to stipulate whether their products contained either CBD or THC, or components of the cannabis plant, to avoid misleading consumers.
Hemp, another product of the cannabis plant, with a much lower THC content, has been touted for its multiple uses, including its nutritional value and industrial applications.
At the webinar, Campbell said the department had decategorised hemp as a foodstuff because of “lack of evidence of its nutritional benefits” but lobbyists disagreed.
“Saying they’re banning anything that’s made with any part of the cannabis plant is insane,” Friends of Hemp South Africa president Ayanda Bam told the Mail & Guardian.
He explained that hemp seeds can be milled into a powder that can be consumed in smoothies, cereals, soups or in drinks and can also be pressed into oils used in beverages, food and cosmetic products or dehulled and consumed whole.
The seeds are rich in omegas three, six and nine and have a high protein content, with hemp powder and oil considered “superfoods”.
The health department has “not done their homework, and that’s the challenge”, Bam said.
“We have such a big knowledge asymmetry and people are obviously going to make decisions that seem quite well informed, but are actually nonsensical, because they don’t understand the context.
“They don’t understand the industry; they don’t understand the plant.”
In his State of the Nation speech, Ramaphosa said his government wanted South Africa “to be leading in the commercial production of hemp and cannabis”.
This week, experts said South Africa had massive potential to grow the market and trade with other countries but the ban would make it difficult to exploit this.
Bam said, even if the department decided to reverse the ban, South Africa’s image on the global scale had already been tarnished.
The global hemp seed market was estimated at $ 5 billion in 2023 and is projected to double by 2032.
The food and beverages component accounts for more than 55% of this value and is the fastest-growing segment as more consumers follow health trends.
The US, Russia, EU member states, Canada and China recognise, and trade, hemp grain as a food, Friends of Hemp South Africa said in a statement this week.
South Africa has more than 1?400 legally compliant hemp cultivation businesses and there are more than 400 small, medium and micro enterprises and at least five major retailers seeking to gain greater market share in the industry.
“Based on a sample of only 10 existing representative businesses, the loss in inventory and monthly revenues amounts to more than R80 million and R25 million, respectively,” Friends of Hemp South Africa said.
“This pales in comparison to, for example, more than R4 billion already invested by government and hemp/cannabis businesses, pipeline investments in technology and infrastructure totalling over R5 billion to create more than 40?000 local jobs.
“More than R2 billion has been committed to co-investments from international partners in technology transfer, skills development and project preparation and financing.”
Hemp cultivator Ben Sassman, the founder of small business Hemp4Life, said the ban does not make the market feasible or attractive for anyone — even for the businesses and enterprises that had been granted permits — to cultivate or manufacture hemp products.
“They spend more money than what they made. So, it’s not profitable, unless you process it into something, but now the government is saying that it is becoming illegal for us to use it in South Africa.”
The ban is a lost opportunity for South Africa to boost economic growth, create jobs and boost trade with other countries, said Tebogo Tlhopane, the founder and chief executive of Biomuti and chair of the Cannabis Trade Association of South Africa.
“We need to have laws that make sense — laws that attract investment, create growth, create jobs.
“I projected that we could be creating about 4 million jobs in the entire cannabis value chain — and that’s being very conservative,” Tlhopane told the M&G.
“We need homegrown industries …We need to maybe start looking at how we start creating those opportunities at home.
“We can make gummies, we can make all sorts of things. It’s important that we get those industries up and running with the proper support structures to make sure that they succeed and get a clear legislation that governs.”
The department of trade, industry and competition has put together a plan to support the regulation and commercialisation of cannabis, including manufacturing; market development; support for enterprise and supplier development; and regulatory reform; but lobbyists say this has been moving at snail’s pace.
At this week’s webinar, a director at the department, Sinah Mosehla, told participants: “Those that are using cannabis to make foodstuffs will cease production. Those products in the pipeline will obviously have to stop because a ban is a regulating tool of the government.
“Companies need to comply but with the hope that soon the department of health [will] look at developing regulations that will guide how cannabis or hemp should be used into production, including how to label appropriately and how to market it.”
She added that the trade and health departments would work closely together to develop a regulatory framework.
The department of health had not responded to questions from the M&G by the time of publishing.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority declined to comment, saying the ban had no effect on its mandate to regulate medicines or other health products.
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