South Africa’s G20 promoted food security, but not food justice

South Africa identified food security as a priority theme for its G20 presidency, for three reasons: the fact that South Africa’s Constitution guarantees the right to access to sufficient food for all, ongoing high levels of global food insecurity, and to build on initiatives such as the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, established under the Brazilian presidency in 2024.

The concept note for the Food Security Task Force correctly pointed out that “the world produces more than sufficient food to feed humanity”. In his keynote address at the Ministerial Meeting of the Task Force in September, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen agreed – hunger must be addressed “not as a symptom of scarcity, but as an outcome of price shocks, input costs, climate disruptions and market speculation”. Similarly, the G20 Food Security Task Force Declaration concludes that global hunger persists “despite sufficient global food production to meet the demand”.

Probably for this reason, the Food Security Task Force Declaration (adopted on 19 September) and the G20 Leaders’ Declaration (adopted on 22 November) do not highlight the significance of agricultural growth in addressing global food insecurity – contra a headline in Daily Maverick on 23 November. The word “growth” does not appear in the five paragraphs under “Food Security” in the Leaders’ Declaration, which instead emphasise “access and affordability to safe, healthy and nutritious food”, “resilient and sustainable food systems” and “investment in smallholder and family farmers”.

The Food Security Task Force commissioned three studies that address structural drivers of food insecurity and policy responses: global food price volatility; commodity price stabilisation mechanisms; and climate-resilient food security instruments. The studies were written by international experts and United Nations agencies – FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD – and they reflect the technocratic preoccupations of dozens of previous reports produced by the UN on these issues. Food insecurity is framed as a technical issue. Recommendations include establishing buffer stocks and regional food baskets, creating export opportunities for African farmers, and investing in climate-resilient agriculture.

The recommendations of T20 Task Force 4, “Solidarity for the Achievement of the SDGs”, of which I was a co-lead, were quite different. The T20 Communiqué argued for building equitable food systems, investing in agroecological practices and strengthening social protection systems to reduce inequalities.

Food insecurity has been a major issue in the public discourse in South Africa in 2025. Local civil society organisations like the Union Against Hunger, Grow Great and HEALA have led national campaigns against profiteering by supermarkets, childhood stunting, and in support of the sugar tax and front-of-package warning labels on unhealthy foods.

The Union Against Hunger conducted “hunger hearings” in five provinces and collected dozens of testimonies and lived experiences of hunger, as well as constructive ideas about what needs to be done, from people and communities directly affected by hunger themselves. Ideas included:

• Raising the Child Support Grant (R560 per month) and the Social Relief of Distress grant (R370) to the food poverty line (currently R796);
• Introducing a wealth tax on the super-rich to finance a Hunger Fund;
• Imposing a “competition tax” on commercial farms to promote community-grown food and support local producers;
• Extension of the Unemployment Insurance Fund to informal workers such as street food vendors and seasonal farm workers;
• Establishing community food gardens by claiming unused municipal land; and
• Extending school feeding schemes to feed children during school holidays.

Not one of these community members mentioned buffer stocks or regional grain reserves as a solution to their hunger.

Of course, the G20 is a multinational body, but the critical food security issues in South Africa – rampant inequality, inequitable food systems, the cost-of-living crisis – are shared by many other countries, in the G20 and the wider world. Even in high-income European countries, “40% of young people rank rising prices and living costs among their top concerns”.

Meanwhile, Shoprite profits from hunger to the tune of R13-billion per year, while 1.5 million children under five (29%) in South Africa suffer from stunted growth.

State failure to deliver on the right to food, and excessive concentration of corporate power in the agrifood system, must be confronted if food insecurity is to be eradicated. The Food Security Task Force Declaration does mention progressive realisation of the right to food, but is silent about corporate power and inequities in food systems. These are not local, parochial, South African realities. Food injustice is global. DM

Stephen Devereux is a development economist working on food security, famine and social protection. He is a professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, where he is co-director of the Centre for Social Protection and a founding member of the Food Equity Centre. He holds the NRF South African Research Chair in Social Protection for Food Security, affiliated to the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security and the Institute for Social Development at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.