Immigrants make an enormous contribution to the food security in South Africa

For more than 12 years the Department of Science and Innovation-National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS), a national research centre, has supported a wide range of research into food and nutrition security in South Africa. Some of this research has been focused on micro-enterprises, such as street vendors and spaza shops, and their contribution to the food system, especially in low-income areas.

Our research, conducted across the country, has demonstrated, with certainty, that street vendors make fresh produce more accessible to citizens, through selling at lower per-unit prices, as well as selling close to where people live or work and in small quantities that people can afford. Many also provide credit to customers they know. In short, street vendors are crucial to an accessible and equitable food system for all.

Diving deeper into our data, and based on tracking prices over two years, we found that, per kilogram, street vendors were selling eight different fruits and vegetables for an average of 32.7% less than formal-sector outlets. On a range of everyday food items – such as potatoes, onions and tomatoes – people would have to pay more than 50% more per kilogram if they bought from a supermarket instead of a street vendor. And yes, many of those vendors are originally from other countries – from other parts of our continent and further afield.

As the CoE-FS, we have also found that spaza shops are making maize meal more accessible, a staple in many of our kitchens. The same popular maize meal brands have invariably been cheaper from spaza shops than from supermarkets. The same brand, the same quality, but cheaper in the spaza shop, just a few minutes from where you live, compared with the price in a supermarket in a more-distant mall. Even more affordable are the wholesalers that supply spaza shops and also sell to the public.

We have also found a range of affordable and popular maize meal brands in each area where we are doing research. These come from very well-run, family-owned millers rather than the big corporate millers. We have also checked the expiry dates and quality of maize meal in spaza shops and found them good. We can’t say every spaza shop is selling good-quality and safe products, but most are. And yes, many of the people running these spazas and wholesalers have come to South Africa from other countries.

Given the widespread poverty in South Africa, anything that makes food easier to buy is helping to reduce food insecurity. Spaza shops and street vendors are making food more accessible and millions of South Africans are benefiting from that.

Most South Africans are decent people and those living in townships and informal settlements also appreciate and know the person selling fruits and vegetables on their street, or selling maize meal and other items in the spaza shop down the road. Many of these people who have come from other countries – and now contribute to food and nutrition security and our economy – have been in South Africa for decades. Many have the legal documents to be here. They are often embedded in local communities. They also sell and buy in these local communities, adding further value to the economy.

Importantly, immigrants in South Africa are showing that it is possible to outcompete the supermarkets and other formal retailers. They have brought business models we can all learn from. They are showing us that another way of structuring our economy is possible, and it does not depend on large corporations and international investors. This is critically important in an economy so dominated by a few big corporations that are using their dominant positions to increase prices and profits. Even if you choose to buy in a supermarket, you are benefiting from the competition of many micro-enterprises that create competition. If you can’t afford the prices in the supermarket and the transport to get there, the local vendor and spaza are lifelines.

We don’t have food deserts in South Africa, as they do in many low-income areas of the US and parts of Europe, because we have the entrepreneurial spirit of these food retailers.

That immigrants take up dominant positions in some parts of the economy is not strange or unusual; it happens around the world. This is because, often, these immigrants don’t have other economic opportunities that the citizens of the country have and also, in some cases, because they bring a perspective and skills that help them to succeed. Just like in many countries around the world, South Africa today is made up of waves of different immigrants who have come here over many centuries and contributed to building and making the country what it is.

For example, in the 1800s, we saw across South Africa the Jewish itinerant traders and trading store owners, many of whom were fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. The descendants of some of these traders went on to become corporate leaders in the country. In the 1900s, many people of Portuguese descent opened local grocery stores. More recently, many fleeing war and persecution in Somalia have started playing a similar role. Just as migrant workers from the southern African region came and worked in the mines and built our cities, so street vendors came from the same countries, and are selling fruits and vegetables alongside South Africans, helping to build our food system. This is a natural process in any country. Not one to be feared or resisted, but embraced, as indeed many South Africans do; living alongside people from other countries, working with them, and buying from them.

The nature of businesses that many immigrants to South Africa start are found all over most parts of Africa and Asia. In South Africa, the settler colonial regimes and then apartheid of course disposed black South Africans from the land, and limited what they were allowed to do in other parts of the economy. At the same time, the colonial and apartheid regimes invested in building up a particular scale and nature of white-owned business, from farms to supermarkets; many of their shareholders now from other countries and taking the profits they make out of South Africa. This history is a large part of the reason we have such concentration of corporate ownership in the food system in South Africa and why we have not had large numbers of black South African entrepreneurs.

The mobilisation and violence against immigrants in South Africa and the anti-immigrant rhetoric from some of our political leaders overlook the valuable contribution so many immigrants make. Of course some immigrants are criminals, just like some South Africans are criminals, but most are hard-working people who are just trying to make a better future for themselves and their families. Just like far too many South Africans, many migrants are stuck in poverty in an economy that is failing the majority. More than 60% of the households in South Africa are food insecure. One in 10 people are undernourished and, tragically and unforgivably, about 10,000 children die each year due to being undernourished.

While the anti-immigrant messaging and mobilisation sometimes claims to be about “illegal” immigrants, it is of course – as those behind it know very well – a threat to all immigrants. It is also a threat to many South Africans, especially those from certain ethnic groups, those with a particularly dark complexion, and the tens of thousands of South Africans (born here to South African parents) who never received identity documents.

Instead of mobilising against those from other countries, we need to be learning from them, embracing and appreciating their contribution in our economy and society, not least to food security. We should be learning from them so that all can benefit from the more diverse and equitable food system they are helping create.

The poverty, unemployment and food insecurity that far too many people in South Africa suffer from is real. People who happen to have come here from other countries at some time are not the cause of these challenges. In fact, they are often suffering the same poverty and are contributing to helping South Africans survive, as millions of South Africans who work with them and buy food from them know.

Solidarity and dialogue is the best way forward to solving our common challenges and to building a more just and equitable society where all have enough to eat, and can live in dignity without fear. DM