12 November 2013

Urban Food Security - Local and international measurement challengesDr Jane Battersby, UCT/AFSUN

AFSUN 11 City findings

SANHANES 1(MRC,HSRC)

A rural framing

‘One of the primary objectives... is to overcome rural food insecurity by increasing the participation of rural food insecure households in productive agriculture sector activities’ (Department of Agriculture 2002, 28

Likewise, the ANC’s 2009 Election Manifesto listed food security as one of its five priority areas, but also coupled food insecurity with rural development (ANC 2009).

Food security priority area of the NPC described as “food security, water security and rural development.” (Manuel 2012)

Some questions

What are we measuring and why?

How does how we aggregate data shape how we understand the data?

Is the household scale sufficient as a scale of analysis?

What is the purpose of the measurement?

Definitions are informed by a set of broader values. Definitions and their related measurement approaches frame policy responses and the imagined sets of possibilities to address the problem as it is framed by the data.

What do current measurement approaches reveal and what to they obscure? What kinds of policy responses do they make viable and what other kinds might they limit?

A question of aggregation

“Gauteng and the Western Cape are wealthier provinces with the least number of poor households at less than 12% each” (IFSS 2002, 22)

No. HH <R600

Gauteng (6.1% all households) = 119 814

Northern Cape (21.7% all households) = 40 757

Sampling strategy

Across whole city or within particular areas

Comparability and generalizability vs. context-rich case study

Is the household scale sufficient?

Conclusions

Although food insecurity is experienced at the household scale, its drivers are also beyond the household scale, particularly in the urban.

Need for indicators that can engage the broader environment to open up new policy and strategy options.