WATER RESOURCE AND FOOD SECURITY: A CASE STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS IN GAUTENG PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa is considered a ‘food-secure’ nation, producing enough calories to adequately feed every one of its 53 million people. However, the reality is that, despite some progress since the birth of democracy in 1994, one in four people currently suffers hunger on a regular basis and more than half of the population live in such precarious circumstances that they are at risk of going hungry. At national and country levels, South Africa exceeds most global benchmarks for amounts of food produced and exported. However, national figures hide the reality at the household level. Household survey was conducted in the Gauteng Province by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD) to establish the water resources and food security status. The following objectives were followed: (1) to identify and describe water resource availability in terms of wetness status and water sources. (2) to identify and describe food security status in terms of accessibility. A total of 1150 households’ participated, quantitative, and qualitative designs were used as a questionnaire, stakeholder’s discussion and field observations were part of the data collection. A purposive sampling technique was used and data was coded, captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Food security status was also in line with the fact that South Africa is food insecure at a household level in contradiction to the national level. At the same time, rainfall decreased significantly during the data collection period in Gauteng Province. The standardised precipitation index (SPI) showed that severe to extreme drought conditions were present over some parts of South Africa including Gauteng Province during data collection and currently the SPI showed the presence of mild to moderate drought conditions. 942/82% households had access to irrigation water with 208/18% households had no access to irrigation water. The large majority (881/77%) of households reported relying on municipal piped water for irrigating their gardens while few households reporting river or boreholes as sources of water. It was also emphasised by officials during focus groups discussions that households were encouraged to use rainwater harvesting and greywater. 876/76% Households across Gauteng Province indicated that water is available year round while 274/24% households did not receive water year round. This limited water resource had a negative impact on household food security as a whopping number of Gauteng Province households interviewed were food insecure (860/75%) as compared to households that are food secure (290/25%). This food security situation is worrying because 695/60% households go to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food and about 395/34% households goes the whole day and night without eating anything. In terms of the impression of food availability across the Gauteng Province, most of the households (347/30% always, 159//14% often & 450/39% sometimes) indicated that their food runs out before they get money to buy more. Quite a number of households (371/32% never & 549/48% sometimes) cannot afford to eat enough food everyday. In terms of food accessibility, seven hundred and sixty seven (765/67%) households indicated that they lack resources for accessing food, while 385/33% households accessed food. The implications for this scenario can be that 765/67% households are food insecure due to lack of resources for accessing or producing food. This is because the households cannot afford to buy or produce preferred foods, thus they resorted to 1 Senior Researcher & Project Leader, Agriculture Research Council: Vegetables and Ornamental Plants, Pretoria, South Africa, E-mail: maponyap@arc.agric. za 3 World Irrigation Forum (WIF3) 1-7 September 2019, Bali, Indonesia ST-1.2 W.1.2.01 2 monotonous diets because it is all that they can afford. For instances, 1002/87% households have to eat fewer meals in a day, 1001/87% households have to eat a smaller meal, 991/86% households eat some foods that really did not want to eat, 1000/87% households have to eat a limited variety of food, 964/84% households have not be able to eat the kinds of food they preferred. This food access situation is worrying because 695/60% households go to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food and about 395/34% households goes the whole day and night without eating anything. However, in Gauteng Province the situation is different as even households with access to piped water complained that the municipality water bill is too high to engage in household food production. The drought situation also added burden to the households’ food security status. Other households have emphasised that they find it difficult to access irrigation water as most of the household were residing in informal settlements or areas where there is no service delivery. It is thus concluded that there is a need to integrate surface water and groundwater to ensure water sustainability to support food security. The Agricultural Research Council is also involved in water related research in Gauteng Province to address the challenges of food security. The survey recommended that households should use grey water, groundwater and encouraged to harvest rainwater to engage in household food production.