Low-income households borrow to eat, survey finds

© Oleksandr Pakhay – 123RF.com

Households prioritise the payment of transport, education, electricity, burial insurance and the repayment of debt before food. Food is prioritised last because it is one of the few expenses households can control. Because food is last in the line of expenditure, the food budget was low and households underspent on food by 55.6%.

The research found that food ran out by the second or third week in the month. Debt was taken out to cover food shortfalls. Because food is a continuous expense households were becoming trapped in a vortex of debt.

The overall food price inflation on the PACSA food basket from November 2014 to September 2015 was 4.3%. This mirrors the Consumer Price Index. In rand value, the cost of the basket increased by R66.10 from R1550.87 to R1616.97.

A closer inspection of the inflation in the basket shows that the highest levels of inflation is on the core staple foods and the lower quality proteins. These are foods that households have to procure to access a level of energy and nutrition.

Inflation on the core staple foods was 6.6%. The highest increases were seen in maize meal (14.4%), white sugar (10kg) by 6.7%, rice (10kg) by 6.3% and salt (1kg) by 9.7%. When core staple foods increase they reduce the money available for other foods resulting in the loss of diversity on the plate. This has implication for health, wellbeing and productivity. Already South Africa's mortality statistics show Non-Communicable Diseases as the highest cause of death for women aged 45 to 64. Women are most affected because mothers eat last and therefore eat the least diversity of foods.

The protein basket

Inflation on the protein in the basket was 7.7%, which was driven by the lower quality proteins that households were switching to in an effort to at least secure a basic level of nutrition (chicken necks (6kg) increased by a whopping 66.3%; polony (2.5kg) increased by 18.2%; and eggs, increased by 8.2% on a tray of 30). It cost a mother 7.9% more in September 2015 than it did in November 2014 to provide sandwiches for her teenage child for a month. Polony increased by 18.2% and margarine increased by 23.5%. Polony and margarine are important to provide protein and fats for children.

The increases in core staples and low-quality protein is extremely worrisome as low-income households were forced into buying these foods as a survival strategy given that households have insufficient income to spend on food.

The 2015 Food Price Barometer shows that households are underspending on food by 55.6%. The cost of a basic, but minimum, nutritional food basket for a household of seven was R3644.09 in September 2015 while most households are spending around R1616.97 a month. For a household with an income of R3200 (the maximum income level for 60% of Pietermaritzburg households) proper nutrition comes to 113.9% of household income. If a household spends R1616.97 a month on food it consumes 50.5% of a R3200 household's income. This is a substantial part of the household income when considering all the other goods and services that households need.

Pay rises needed

In order to resolve the disconnect between the low levels of income and attempts to ensure that families are fed households take on debt to put food on the table.

The key to dealing with the current food affordability crisis and getting households out of the cycle of poverty, inequality and indebtedness lies in finding ways to substantially increase income levels. Whilst we do need to ensure that food prices, particularly of our staple foods are affordable; cheaper food, which is often poorer quality food, is not the answer. Increasing incomes is essential to enable families to be supported at a basic level of dignity because the crisis is about affordability, not insufficiency of food.

The affordability crisis around food that finds households unable to secure a range of nutritious, sufficient and diverse food means that the majority of South Africans are not able to achieve their full humanity.