While calls have been made for South Africans to start being food secure by establishing food gardens and planting their own food amid the growing tough economic climate in the country, the Stats SA Census 2022 report has revealed the opposite. The number of agricultural households is sitting at 13.8% which is equivalent to over 2.4 million houses, compared to 19.9% in 2011 which was over 2.8 million households.
A decrease in food gardens
According to Stats SA, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Free State were the three top provinces contributing to the decline.
In unpacking the stats, the director responsible for data analysis and output Tshepo Pekane said the numbers were drawn from questions posed to households regarding the source of their agricultural activity.
“We posed three questions: What was the main agricultural activity and the number of livestock? In most cases, it was poultry. We also asked what was the main purpose of their agricultural activities. This excluded commercial farmers or big entities,” he said.
Pekane said although the data was preliminary, it gave an indication of the scale of agriculture at the household level which was mainly food gardens.
“We mainly focused on livestock and poultry. When it comes to crop farming, no quantities were captured for crops,” he said.
Pekane said it was the first time that they had collected data on livestock, something they’d been considering for some time.
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Own consumption dominates
According to the report, most of the households were involved in agriculture to produce for their own consumption only.
“Approximately 4.3% or 107 112 of agricultural households were producing only for sale. Most black African agricultural households were involved to produce only for own consumption (1 854 308 or 83%) compared with 55 787 or 43.9% of white agricultural households,” he said.
The report stated that most of the agricultural households were in KwaZulu-Natal (24.9%), Eastern Cape (20.7%) and Limpopo(16.3%) in 2011.
In 2022, KwaZulu-Natal (22.3%) still reported the highest percentage of agricultural households. However, Limpopo (21.1%) overtook Eastern Cape (19.6%). Northern Cape and Western Cape reported the lowest percentage of agricultural households in both 2011 and 2022.
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No support given
Commenting on the report, Saamtrek Saamwerk coordinator Sehularo Sehularo said it was not surprising that the number of households who are practising agriculture had gone down.
“It really does not come as a surprise simply because there was a lack of support and the price of inputs was unbearable. It is really difficult to keep up with agriculture at any scale whether small or large scale.
“With the high rate of unemployment, starting a backyard farm seems to be easy on paper, but the reality is that it is not. And with the lack of training and support, such agricultural households will not make it,” he said.
Sehularo said for food gardens to work, municipalities through local economic development offices needed to play a crucial role in ensuring that communities are food secure.
Action required
“If we are genuine about food gardens and making sure that households are food secure, we need action and not only words.
“We cannot leave sustainability of food in our communities only to non-profit organisations; the local sphere of government needs to come to the table. They can’t just give inputs and leave. Proper training is needed for women and the youth, ” he said.
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