Abstract: 
This presentation discusses the results of a SALDRU project that utilized a mixed-methods approach to the analysis of Food Insecurity in South Africa. We started off with nationally representative estimates of food insecurity using Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey, which includes questions that allow for the estimation of the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). We then conducted a survey of the severity of food insecurity among food insecure households, using a two-staged cluster sampling method that (1) draws a representative sample of Beneficiary Organisations (BO) from a sampling frame of national BO of food aid; and (2) draws a sample of adults that are registered beneficiaries of the BO. This survey was supplemented with a Focus Group of adults that were recipients of food aid at one of the BO, which focused on individual and household coping strategies for dealing with food insecurity. 

Results from the GHS show that between 2019, 2022 and 2023, the years for which Stats SA’s completed the FIES modules in the GHS, food insecurity in SA worsened, going from 24.2% to 24.4% to 28.9%, respectively. Households experiencing severe food insecurity also worsened, going from 8.9% to 10.2% to 11.3%, while households with children under 5 years saw a deterioration from 11% to 13%. Results of the survey on the severity of food insecurity among food insecure households show that 75% of households experienced moderate to severe food insecurity, with 25% experiencing severe food insecurity. The effect on children was also severe: 75% of households reporting children ate less, 47% reporting skipped meals, 50% reporting children went a full day without eating at some point in the past year. Household food insecurity is higher in larger, female-headed and rural households, as well as those without an employed household member. Results from the focus group investigating coping strategies of adults in food insecure households showed that (1) the time of the month when households were the most vulnerable is when grant money ran out, which was usually the last two weeks of the month; (2) the main instruments used to get through the month once money had run out was (a) informal credit at local retailers and family members, and (b) food donations from organized food support vendors; (3) there was a direct trade-off between food and health expenditures that impacted children in the households the harshest, especially in the last two weeks of the month; and (4) members reported difficulties looking for and finding work to support themselves in the community. 

We found that limitations with the mixed-gender mixed-age focus group included that it became apparent that older men dominated the conversation; when asked about who in the household was prioritized with food when there were shortages, members generally reported that it was children, but did not report that it was men over women, something we felt may have been self-censored by the participating women; older participants received grants and so had a measure of income reliability that younger men in the focus group wouldn’t have had, yet when asked how they coped with food insecurity the younger men did not volunteer information. Recommendations for focus groups dealing with sensitive subjects include that they should split women and men and have separate gender-matched facilitators; they should split age groups to pensioners and non-pensioners; and possibly split individuals into those that have children or care for them versus those that do not. 

About the presenter: 
Reza C. Daniels is Director of SALDRU and a Professor in the School of Economics at UCT.