When survival leaves no room for compassion in South Africa’s food system

On 27 April, South Africa marks Freedom Day, a commemoration of the transition towards democracy and a chance for renewed commitment to dignity, equality and the rule of law. This year’s theme, Freedom and the Rule of Law: Thirty Years of Democratic Citizenship, invites reflection not only on the constitutional rights and freedoms enshrined in 1996, but on whether those rights are meaningfully realised in everyday life.

Freedom, as South Africans know, is not abstract; it is lived (or denied) through the conditions that shape people’s daily choices. This is no more visible than in South Africa’s food system.

For millions of South Africans, the freedom to choose what to eat, how to nourish their families and whether these choices align with their values is profoundly constrained. This is not only an issue of hunger or poverty, though these remain pervasive. It is the structural nature of the food system itself that prevents the majority of people from making ethical, sustainable and health-conscious food choices.

In other words, while many South Africans may want to care, they do not have the freedom to do so.

The burden of impossible choices

Across the country, households have to navigate a daily balancing act, stretching limited incomes to feed families amid rising food (and other) prices, inadequate social protections and deep-rooted inequality. Nutritious food, particularly fresh, minimally processed food, remains inaccessible and unaffordable for many. Time and energy for food preparation are also scarce, particularly for women who continue to shoulder the primary responsibility for household care work, while also juggling other formal/work responsibilities.

In this context, the freedom of choice is a trade-off between cost, convenience and survival.

A mother deciding what to put on the table does not have the freedom to weigh up ethical considerations about health, sustainability or animal welfare. She is asking: What will fill my child’s stomach today, at the lowest possible cost?

Yet, this framing obscures a deeper injustice. It suggests that individuals are failing to make better food choices when external conditions make these choices nearly impossible. While emerging research suggests that roughly 84% of South Africans demand increased animal welfare information from food companies, indicating a desire for more ethical decision-making, the majority of people remain systematically prevented from making more caring food choices.

A system shaped by corporate power

South Africa’s food system is highly concentrated, with a small number of powerful multinational corporations exercising significant control over food production, processing, distribution and retail. This concentration shapes not only what food is available, but at what price and at what cost – and to whom.

Ultra-processed, energy-dense, nutrient-poor, predominantly animal-sourced foods and animal by-products dominate the market because they are “cheap” to produce, convenient for consumers and thus profitable for corporations. However, these low prices come at an immense cost to society, which is largely hidden from consumers, including:

• Rising rates of diet-related non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension;
• Environmental degradation, including pollution and climate change; and
• The systemic suffering of millions of animals within intensive and cruel production systems

This is not incidental; it reflects a system designed to maximise profit rather than nourishment, care or sustainability.

The overlooked connection

Legal responses to and discussions about human rights, food insecurity, public health and animal protection are often treated as separate concerns, when in reality, they are deeply interconnected.

The same system that entrenches inequality and constrains consumer choice also relies on large-scale exploitation of animals to keep certain food products artificially cheap. Industrial animal agriculture prioritises efficiency and output, often at the expense of both human and animal wellbeing.

Animals in these systems are routinely denied the globally recognised “five freedoms”: freedom from hunger, malnutrition and thirst; freedom from fear and distress; freedom from heat stress or physical discomfort; freedom from pain, injury or disease; and the freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour. These are not abstract ideals but the basic conditions for a life free from unnecessary suffering and they strive towards the promotion of the conditions needed for flourishing.

At the same time, people (mostly women) working within the food system, including small-scale farmers, fishers and slaughterhouse workers, among others, face precarious working conditions, with limited labour protections and over-exposure to harms such as continuous violence. At the same time, most workers and consumers are left with “cheap”, low-quality food options. Therefore, vulnerability is not isolated – it is produced and reproduced across the food system.

Understanding this shared vulnerability is critical for guiding how we should aim to address it. It shifts the conversation away from blaming individuals and towards recognising the structural and entrenched nature of harm in our food system. It also opens space for an urgent but missing response, one grounded in an ethic of care.

Reclaiming freedom

If Freedom Day is to have meaning beyond symbolism, it must speak to the realities of ALL lives – both people’s and animals’.

Freedom is not only the right to vote or speak freely, but it is also the ability to live with dignity. This means having real options: food that is affordable, healthy and produced in ways that do not depend on and promote the exploitation of people, animals or the environment. It means (being able to) avoid participating in systems that cause and perpetuate harm.

Without stronger legal frameworks to support and enforce this, freedom, especially in the food system, will remain unevenly distributed and a privilege experienced by those who can afford to choose and denied to those who cannot.

Towards a care-centred food system

Reimagining South Africa’s food system requires more than piecemeal interventions. It calls for a fundamental shift in how we understand and organise food governance. A care-centred food system must be grounded in rights, equity and accountability. It must also recognise food not merely as a commodity, but as a public good essential to health, dignity and social justice. This could include:

• Strengthening the right to food through enforceable laws and policies;
• Addressing corporate concentration across the food system;
• Embedding gender-responsive approaches that recognise and support care work;
• Advancing ethical and sustainable production systems, including animal protection and a transition towards agro-ecological food systems; and
• Corporations’ internalising the true costs of food production, so that prices reflect not only the economic efficiency but also the social and environmental harms incurred.

Of course, this transformation will not be easy, but it is necessary if we are to uphold the promise of freedom within the realities of everyday life for all in South Africa.

Freedom, care and the future

Thirty years into democracy, South Africa stands at a crossroads. The constitutional vision of dignity, equality and freedom remains powerful and within reach – but its realisation remains slow and disproportionate. The food system offers a clear lens through which to see this gap. It reveals how structural inequalities shape all aspects of life and how freedom can be limited in ways that are both pervasive and often invisible.

But this also offers us an opportunity.

By centring care across systems that affect people, animals and the environment, we can begin to imagine a different future. One in which the ability to be free and to care is not a privilege, but a shared and supported reality for all.

Until then, Freedom Day will remain a reminder not only of how far South Africa has come, but how far we still have to go. DM

Paula Knipe is a lawyer with the Food Systems Reform and Farmed Animals Programme for Animal Law Reform South Africa.