Millions of South African households are falling below the poverty line.
According to new research by African Bank, almost half (49%) of people with no income surveyed in January had experienced food shortages in the four prior weeks. Following close on their heels, 47% of respondents with a monthly income of R1 to R4 999 also reported experiencing food shortages within that month.
Meanwhile, new data released by Statistics SA (Stats SA) on Wednesday showed that about 2.1 million or 11.6% of South African households experiencing hunger in 2021.
Stats SA blamed this on high unemployment, the ongoing energy crisis and rising costs of living. It said almost 700 000 of the households that reported hunger had children below the age of five. This was more prevalent in rural parts of KwaZulu-Natal, where 20.1% of hunger-stricken households with younger children were found, followed by Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Although only 2.1 million households reported hunger, the numbers show that 21% or 3.7 million of almost 17.9 million households in SA did not have adequate access to food.
These numbers would have been worse, had it not been for mainly women-headed households that undertook agricultural activities as their primary food source. About 12% of households that reported being involved in agricultural activities did it solely for this subsistence purpose, while 74.5% did it for an extra source of food for the household.
Although it was mainly households with no employed person that experienced hunger, the high dependency rate in SA saw 7.9% of households with at least one employed member facing food insecurity too.
And those hunger levels were recorded before the rapid rise in food prices caused by the Russia-Ukraine war-induced supply chain issues in 2022.
Even the African Bank data that gauged hunger in low to middle-income households shows food shortages before the inflation shocker in February after food prices rose by 13.6%.
Already the largest expense for most adults in African Bank's market research was groceries, with 43% indicating that they spent between R1 001 and R2 500 per month.
That was the most common monthly grocery bill even among adults with no monthly income, while 50% make do with monthly groceries of less than R1 000.
Some 44% of seniors also reported monthly spending R1 001 to R2 500 on groceries. The average grocery expenditure for seniors was R1 668, slightly below the Old Age Persons' monthly grant of R2 080.
African Bank said its data showed that food insecurity arose because most respondents simply didn't have enough money to buy enough food. Compounding the problem was that many poor households incur significant travelling costs to buy basic groceries. The shops near them don't stock all the basics they can afford or need.
"Around 40% of ... entry-level income adults need to travel 20km [or more] to purchase groceries either monthly or weekly," wrote the bank in the report.
Even some seniors above 60 who are likely dependent on the state old age grant experienced food shortages. Twenty-seven percent reported experiencing food insecurity or shortages in the past four weeks before the researchers spoke to them in January. Some 38% said they ran out of money before the end of the month.
Asked what would make them more satisfied with their living situations, even the younger youth felt pressured to do something about their food insecurities.
Finding a job and "having enough money to contribute [to] groceries" were some of their verbatim hopes and dreams contained in the report. Some 12% of youth still at school listed struggling to put food on the table as one of their biggest challenges, something one would expect to mainly concern adults.
"If I could get a good paying job to be able to buy official groceries each month instead of what I'm having right now," added one adult.
