Hunger and malnutrition today are not caused by food shortage, or scarcity: hunger is an issue of access to food, to an adequate income, or to productive resources that allow poor people to either produce or buy enough food.[1]

Food is critical to our survival.[2]  We need food to live but also to provide the energy to learn and work, perform our tasks efficiently and often also the occasion for social interaction.  Conversely, a hungry person do not have the energy to learn, work, or even take part in the social, religious or political life because their attention is devoted to securing their next meal. Hunger and malnutrition are not merely symptoms of poverty but also a main cause of poverty as those who are suffer long-term hunger or malnutrition are most likely to get caught in a poverty trap.  Getting sufficient nutritious food is therefore one of the main means to ensure our right to a life lived in dignity.  For this reason access to food has been recognised as a basic human right in both international human rights law and the South African Constitution. 

Food takes up a large proportion of a typical household expenditure. It is estimated that food expenses consume 75% of the monthly income for urban population and 63% for the rural population.[3] Most people are net buyers of food and household income therefore plays a critical role in accessing food.  Even if there is abundance of food if we do not have sufficient money we would not be able to access sufficient food.  A correlation therefore exists between affordability and access to food. The reality is that as food prices increase the poor become more food insecure (unable to ensure adequate daily nutrition) for fluctuation in prices of essential commodities affects them most and this traps them in even deeper poverty cycles.

The PACSA food basket research tracks fluctuations in food prices and compares that to household incomes in order to gain insight on household's ability to access sufficient food. Since PACSA first started the food basket research project in 2006, the average price of its food basket has steadily increased.  The average price peaked in December 2008 at R1031.45 and during 2009 the prices of has started to decline but it is still at much higher levels than the pre-2007 period. 

During 2009, the period covered by this report, the average price of the food basket declined by R155.63, or 15% of its value when comparing the cost of the basket for January 2009 and January 2010. 

This decline in prices is seen in most of the commodities in the food basket.  The decline in the price of the food basket can be attributed to a downwards movement in local and global agricultural commodity prices, which followed lower prices in basic inputs such as fuel and fertilizer.  The easing of droughts in areas of South Africa and Australia has meant greater outputs of maize and rice, bringing the prices of these commodities down.