[South Africa] Government blames commercial farmers for poverty

from Independent On Line

South Africa has a food surplus, yet 14 million people face poverty daily. Government has laid the blame for this at the door of commercial farmers, as attention is focused on addressing global poverty through World Food Day today.

It is estimated that 850 million people around the world are poverty stricken. The majority are in Africa, with sub-Sahara accounting for about 200 million people.

As the major economic powerhouse on the continent, South Africa produces enough food to feed the region. Despite this, an estimated 14 million people live in poverty.

"Those that produce food are more interested in profit and to be able to make money, they export the food because they believe they will make more money out of that. So the majority of people who need the food cannot afford it,” said Lulu Xingwana, the agriculture and land affairs minister.

KwaZulu-Natal gets R107 million from Flemish government
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN says South Africa is on course to meet its Millenium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015. The same cannot be said of much of Africa which is lagging behind its targets.

"The food production per capita has been declining. That's a worrying thing, but the solution to that is for sub-Saharan Africa to increase food production," said George Mburathi of the FAO.

Mburathi says African governments need to increase their investments in agriculture. The KwaZulu-Natal provincial government, for instance, has been given R107 million by the Flemish government.

"In essence, this money is used in many ways but essentially we try to develop our emerging farmers," Gabriel Ndabandaba, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for agriculture and environmental affairs.

Government is encouraged by its efforts in assisting in the development of emerging farmers, but concern remains about the priorities of commercial farmers.