Addressing local level food insecurity amongst small-holder communities in transition
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Hamer, Nicholas G , Swallow, Brent M , Ncube, K
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Food security -- South Africa Economic development -- South Africa Rural development -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50090 , vital:25958
- Description: Food insecurity affects as significant proportion of the world's population and hence it typically receives priority attention in global policies associated with poverty, equity and sustainable development. For example, it is the first of the Millennium Development Goals and the second of their successor, the Sustainable Development Goals. Access to sufficient and nutritious food is deemed a basic human right. The latest FAO analysis of the “State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014” reports that 805 million people (approximately 11-12% of the world's population) are chronically undernourished (i.e. do not have sufficient energy intake over a period of at least one year). In sub-Saharan Africa the prevalence remains stubbornly high at 24%, the highest in the world. Whilst most interpret food insecurity to mean an insufficient quantity of food (as measured by the number of calories consumed), the widely accepted FAO definition considers four dimensions of food security, namely quantity, quality or diversity, access and use. Provision of enough calories on a daily basis is not sufficient if the diet lacks diversity and appropriate balance to provide the full range of minerals and vitamins necessary for proper health, or if the food available is culturally unacceptable. Thus, there is a pressing need for more nuanced analyses of food security against all four of the dimensions embedded in the concept. Additionally, it is important that these be measured at more local or regional levels because national statistics can mask alarming regional discrepancies in food security, or amongst particular sectors of society, such as recent migrants, refugees, female- or child-headed households, those vulnerable to HIV/AIDS or the landless, to mention just a few. For example, at a national level South Africa is considered a food secure nation with respect to staple requirements, and access to sufficient food is enshrined in the Constitution (Section 27, subsection 1b), but nationally one in twenty (i.e. approx. 2.5 million people) go to bed hungry most nights, and 23% of children below the age of 15 are physically stunted, severely stunted or wasted, due to the long-term ill effects of insufficient food or of inadequate diversity and quality. At a subnational level, there are marked differences between rural and urban populations and even between geographic areas (for example, the prevalence of stunting amongst boys less than 15 years old is 23% in the Eastern Cape, compared to 12% in Gauteng). Once again, despite being a food secure nation, nationally 40% of the population have a dietary diversity score of four or less, which is a cut-off point signifying poor dietary diversity which makes people more vulnerable to malnutrition and ill health, and in Limpopo and Northwest provinces it is as high as 66% and 61%, respectively.
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- Date Issued: 2015
Interaction of multiple stressors: vulnerability, coping and adaptation within the context of climate change and HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Investigating strategies to strengthen livelihoods and food security and build resilience
- Authors: Hamer, Nicholas G , Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Climatic changes -- Economic aspects -- Eastern Cape (South Africa) Climatic changes -- South Africa Climatic changes -- Social aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50065 , vital:25956
- Description: Government policy development and implementation is often designed to address different sectors of society in isolation, so social, economic and environmental issues are considered as being distinct from one other. Recently it has been acknowledged that 'working in silos' is not conducive for good governance and so efforts have been made for better co-ordination between different government departments and different spheres of government. Our research findings show the knock on effects of one problem into other areas of people's lives, highlighting why it is vital for policies and programmes to be far better co-ordinated. The different challenges and stresses that people face in their lives interact with one another in complex ways, undermining their capacity to cope with and adapt to future changes, such as those expected under climate change.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Direct-use values of non-timber forest products from two areas on the Transkei Wild Coast
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Timmermans, Herman G , Nongwe, N , Hamer, Nicholas G , Palmer, N R
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/181268 , vital:43714 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03031853.2007.9523764"
- Description: It is now widely appreciated internationally that rural communities make extensive use of wild resources, and that this use has significant direct use value. The number of case studies in South Africa that have valued the use of such resources are small, albeit growing. Yet none of them have been from coastal sites, which would include use of marine resources, nor have previous studies included the non-biological resources of sand and clay for building purposes. This paper addresses this gap, through examination of the role and value of wild resources in rural livelihoods of households in the Ntubeni and Cwebe areas of the Transkei Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape. Households used a wide range of resources collected from the surrounding communal lands and the Dwesa Cwebe Nature Reserve. Major differences between the sites were the widespread use of bushmeat, shellfish and building sand at Ntubeni compared with relatively small use of these three resources at Cwebe. These differences resulted in a markedly higher, gross, annual, direct-use value at Ntubeni than at Cwebe. The gross, annual, direct-use value averaged across all resources (excluding medicinal plants) and all households (user and non-users) was over R12 000 at Ntubeni, compared to R4 858 at Cwebe. At Ntubeni over half of the total annual direct-use value was contributed by fish and shellfish, indicating the need for more studies in coastal areas. A similar pattern was not evident at Cwebe, because residents did not have access to a rocky shoreline outside of the marine reserve. Local trade was highly variable, both between resources and between households. Averaging the value of trade across all households (i.e. traders and non-traders), gave a total gross, annual value of R1 660 and R600 at Ntubeni and Cwebe, respectively.
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- Date Issued: 2007