What’s Eating Us? Podcast travels

With the support of the Women on Farms Project, Daily Maverick visited De Doorns and Stellenbosch during the July 2025 winter to interview farmworkers in these Western Cape grape-growing hubs.

Given that work is not guaranteed, nor is the length or pay, women farmworkers worry about where their families’ next meal will come from. A study by Stephen Devereux and Lauren Taverner-Smith found that 88% of women farmworkers in the Northern Cape experience severe food insecurity during winter due to a lack of work.

At least 40.8 million people in South Africa live below the upper-bound poverty line, meaning they cannot afford the bare essentials, with 10.8 million living below the food poverty line.

After visiting the Cape Winelands, Daily Maverick went to Bulungula in the Eastern Cape, to get the perspectives of a local subsistence farmer, Nothembile Malaile, and the non-governmental organisation that works with the community, the Equality Collective.

The Eastern Cape ranks second nationally for school meal dependency, with 89.3% of public school learners relying on the National School Nutrition Programme. This figure excludes those in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres, who remain outside the primary feeding scheme.

There is a subsidy for ECD centres, which has increased from R17 per child to R24, but unregistered centres do not get it. The Equality Collective provided Daily Maverick with an intimate look at the inner workings of ECD centres and the rhythms of rural life in Bulungula. Their insights highlighted the stark disconnect between national policy and the reality on the ground, revealing the critical gaps that still need to be filled.

Here are snapshots from the journey.

DM