Thursday 18 September 2014

Supermarkets and the Scandal of Hunger

Moving Posts #3

The poor cannot afford their daily bread

The irony of the  Witness news headlines (Retail turf war heats up) did not escape me as PACSA and Oxfam presented facts on hunger in South Africa today: A national supermarket chain goes head to head with a transnational supermarket chain to protect their trade monopoly in fresh produce in shopping malls across the country.

As consumers we are led to believe that competition is good for us, because it drives food prices down. Critical consumers, however, know that these same supermarkets have pushed out local shops and informal traders, who are a critical part of a truly competitive market.

Although price collusion by corporates is a global phenomenon, corporates in South Africa got away with a slap on the wrist for fixing the price of bread and of milk, food staples for the poor. The studies by PACSA and Oxfam GB confirm the research findings of the NGO alliance I represent: the poor can no longer afford their daily bread. 1 in 4 households go hungry each day, and half of our population is at risk of hunger.

Due to rising food prices the poor further spiral into poverty. The legal battle between two Goliaths is paid from profits made over the backs of the small food producers, corner shops, and urban and rural poor who have found the mall’s sliding doors shut in their faces.

I call on you to help David – or perhaps this time it is his powerful female incarnation - rise again against Goliath.

The Scandal of Hunger in Our Wealthy Nation

I feel cheap, I feel small
my children go hungry
they will stay small too
little money buys little food
cheap food, expired food
small packets of potato, a bit of rice
maize meal if we’re lucky
people look down on me
laugh and gossip because I’m poor
make me feel even smaller
a failure-of-a-mother, a failed father
no longer a bread winner
as my child asks “Ma, when will we have bread again?”

                 
          Monique Salomon, coordinator of Tshintsha Amakhaya
          NGO alliance for land and food justice


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