Govt to roll-out food security programme

South Africa has identified 150,000 households urgently in need of food aid and other assistance, and the government has set aside R400 million (about US $46.2 million) to deal with the impact of rising food prices on the poor. Rapidly rising food inflation, blamed largely by supermarket chains and suppliers on the decline in the value of the rand earlier last year, had sparked concern that the poorest of the poor would be unable to access basic commodities. A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Development, Mbulelo Musi, told IRIN the government was already into phase two of its intervention programme. "Last year the government took a decision in October that - given the situation of food price increases, which were going to impact on the poorest of the poor in a very negative way - there was need for an interim intervention to cushion the blow," Musi said. Late last year Finance Minister Trevor Manuel announced that government would set aside R400 million for this purpose. The government had already had a strategy in place, the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme, which was aimed at targeting the worst affected for assistance. "That R400 million set aside by the finance minister was to be used to assist these people in the bottom rank of the poverty spectrum. So research was then conducted in conjunction with Statistics South Africa, which has indicated that if we were to prioritise the worst cases of poverty, it works out to about 150,000 families [in need of aid]," Musi said. Authorities had identified 13 "nodal points" where poverty was pervasive and looked at the poorest, mostly rural, areas where communities would be most affected by food price hikes. "What has happened is that, in about November, a plan was drawn up which was to be implemented in a roll-out programme in phases. Phase one was that a minimum of 10,000 families would be reached. "Phase two is to roll-out to all families [identified as beneficiaries] by March. This is on-going work. We are hopeful that all those 150,000 will be reached," Musi said. He noted that there were two aspects to the government's intervention - one was the distribution of food parcels and the other was the distribution of agricultural starter packs, which included items such as seeds and fertiliser. "This is so people can start sustaining themselves at household and community level," Musi added. He said it was estimated that each family averaged between three and five members. They were selected according to various criteria, such as household income and access to government safety nets. South Africa has largely been unaffected by the regional food security crisis in Southern Africa - brought about by two consecutive droughts, failed government policy and the impact of HIV/AIDS.