By Lebogang Mashala, editor at African Farming

Every year in October, the world observes World Food Day on 16 October, a day set aside to commemorate the establishment of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In South Africa, this commemoration has evolved into Food Security Month, a time when politicians and officials crisscross the country, posing for pictures while handing out food parcels to poor communities.

But behind the smiles and photo opportunities lies a painful truth – millions of South Africans go to bed hungry every night in a country that produces enough food to feed its people and export to others.

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South Africa remains one of Africa’s agricultural powerhouses, yet an estimated 15 million South Africans experience food insecurity. Poverty, unemployment and inequality continue to deprive people of the ability to buy or produce food. The result is a malnutrition crisis, especially among children, where stunting and acute undernourishment are alarmingly high.

The causes are layered – food inflation, low household incomes, climate change and waste all play their part. For many households, even the most basic food items have become luxuries.

To keep hunger at the forefront of the national conversation, the Shoprite Group commissioned the South African Food Security Index 2025, a credible, data-driven effort to monitor how well the country is addressing its food crisis.

The Index measures four critical dimensions: accessibility, affordability, dietary diversity (utilisation) and stability. Encouragingly, the national Index score rose to 56.4 in 2024, up from 44.9 in 2023, marking a rebound from its lowest point since 2010.

This improvement reflects better dietary diversity, an expansion of school feeding schemes and lower food inflation. However, as the report cautions, hunger remains a national emergency, incremental progress cannot mask a deep structural problem.

Some findings are particularly concerning:

All provinces except the Eastern Cape showed improvement.
20% of households still consume too few food groups.
The Free State recorded the worst dietary diversity, nearly half the population ate three or fewer food groups in 24 hours.
Female-headed households remain disproportionately food insecure.

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Adding to the tragedy of hunger is South Africa’s shameful food waste problem. According to the WWF, the country discards around 10 million tonnes of food annually, enough to fill six sports stadiums. This waste costs the economy an estimated R61.5 billion per year, or 2.1% of GDP.

Fruits and vegetables account for a large share of what’s lost. Over 2 million tonnes are thrown away due to “imperfections”, even though they’re nutritionally sound. One in five fruits and vegetables never make it to the shelf because they don’t meet cosmetic standards. Processing, packaging, and consumption stages contribute to 67% of total food loss.

For smallholder farmers, post-harvest losses can be devastating. Recently, cabbage farmers faced huge losses when market prices collapsed. With oversupply and no ready buyers, many resorted to selling a bakkie load for R200 to livestock farmers, barely covering fuel costs. Such losses not only destroy livelihoods but also discourage production, widening the gap between farm output and consumer access.

South Africa doesn’t have a food production problem; it has a food system problem. The real challenge lies in inefficient distribution, wastage, market access and policy inconsistency. The answer is not more ceremonial food parcels but coordinated, systemic solutions that connect producers, markets and consumers efficiently.

Businesses must continue investing in solutions like cold-chain logistics, processing and food redistribution. Government must align policy and infrastructure support to empower smallholders to access markets, not just produce for landfills. Civil society must continue to push for accountability and ensure that hunger is not normalised as a seasonal headline.

World Food Day should not be a photo opportunity. It should be a moment of national reflection and reckoning. Hunger in South Africa is not inevitable; it’s a policy failure, an inequality symptom and a moral test.

If we can waste 10 million tonnes of food while millions starve, then the problem isn’t scarcity, it’s indifference.

The time for token gestures is over. Defeating hunger requires courage, coordination and compassion. Until every South African has food on the table, every day, not just in October, we cannot claim to be food secure.