People encouraged to grow their own food as poverty & hunger increases

Published October 18, 2020, by Admin

The need to encourage people to build and rely on their own food systems was highlighted when World Food Day was commemorated this week during a time where levels of hunger have increased due to the pandemic.

Unemployment in South Africa has risen to 14.1 million after 2.2 million jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2020, and many households have been faced with increasing poverty.

In a webinar hosted by the UWC’s Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies and the Centre of Excellence in Food Security under the theme: Food is our right – the struggle for equitable food systems, it was highlighted how the lockdown further aggravated hunger in poor households.

Activist with Rural Women’s Assembly Denia Jansen said: “In a country where 17 million people depend on social grants and where during Covid-19 the R350 relief fund was not enough to feed families, hunger continues to be a persistent problem.

“We live and work in communities where people experience hunger on a daily basis despite them working on farms or with produce daily, they still go to bed on an empty stomach.

This is a shortened version of the article originally published by IOL. Read the full article here