GLOBALISATION, URBANISATION AND FOOD SECURITY GABORONE URBAN FOOD SECURITY SURVEY CONDUCTED BY AFSUN REPORT PRESENTED BY BEN ACQUAH DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS,

GLOBALISATION, URBANISATION AND FOOD SECURITY

GABORONE URBAN FOOD SECURITY SURVEY CONDUCTED BY AFSUN

REPORT PRESENTED BY BEN ACQUAH DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS, UB

OUTLINE

• INTRODUCTION • GROWTH OF GABORONE• SURVEY METHODOLOGY• RESULTS OF SURVEY

Household Profile of Respondents Demographic Characteristics Economic CharacteristicsLevels of Food Insecurity

OUTLINE (continued)

• Urban Food Sources– Supermarkets– Informal and Small Retail Food Economy– Urban Agriculture– Rural Urban Transfers– Other Sources of FoodFood Insecurity and High Food PricesCONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

INTRODUCTION

• Botswana’s economy has had a sustained rate of growth for the past five decades and is considered one of the best performances in Africa

• Real GDP per capita grew at an average of 4.4% between 1980 and 2010

• Significant fall in the incidence of poverty with absolute numbers declining from 500,000 in 2002/2003 to about 373000 in 2009/2010

INTRODUCTION (continued)

• Despite the good general economic performance Botswana has one of the highest levels of inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Botswana is one of the most rapidly urbanising and most urbanised countries in Africa.

• Between 1966 and 2001 the proportion of the population living in urban areas increased from 5% to 54% and by 2011 the urban population had increased from 5% to 64%.

• Food security in Botswana• The notion of food sufficiency especially in Africa has

gained attention (see Nyeleni Declaration by Forum for food Sovereignty in Mali 2007)

• Botswana’s is as a landlocked country is unlikely to be self-sufficient in food even if all the rural population engage in growing food.

• Botswana occupied a total area of about 582,000Km2 , only between 0.43% and 0.65% are use for crop agriculture in the eastern and northern Botswana respectively.

• This land are mainly used to plough cereal products and the productivity is low, even when government programme such as ARAP has been provided for farmers for ploughing and planting.

• The cost involved in above activities are higher as compared to importing food.

• Botswana’s Import of food have increased over the years and was P7 billion (USD 0.8 billion) in 2007. The import approximately 90% of the national supply (see figure 1 below).

• According to 2012/2013 cereal balance sheet, Botswana needed about 408,000 metric tonnes, but only 31,000 metric tonnes was harvested and the import stood at 494,000 metric tonnes.

• The importation of foodstuffs from South Africa is partly a product of the growing presence and influence of supermarket chains in urban Botswana.

• This raises the question of whether a population that is increasingly dependent on supermarket supply chains is more or less vulnerable to food insecurity.

Figure 1: Total value of Food imports to Botswana (at 2007 prices)

The growth of Gaborone• Gaborone was found in 1963, is the capital of Botswana. The

population grew from 3,855 in 1964 to 231,626 in 2011 and is projected to reach about half a million persons in 2021. It covers an area of 170 Km2

• Gaborone has witnessed extensive public and private investment over the years and it is where most activities take place in Botswana.

• Rapid urbanization in Gaborone has led to major urban sprawl and adjacent peripheral spaces have become integrated into the city region.

• Urban expansion has taken over farms that were in Broadhurst, Bonnington and Glen valley and is encroaching on subsistence and commercial farmland in Kweneng and Kgatleng districts and further to Gaborone north.

• These are areas where peri-urban agricultural enterprises in horticulture, piggery poultry, etc. are concentrated.

• Some farms such as Pakalane estates, Gaborone north and Mokolodi in the south are now developed into huge punch residential areas.

• Rapid urban growth has resulted to high demand of accommodation, rising level of poverty, high demand of infrastructure, increase in unemployment, rising rate of inequality, and the likes.

• This paper examines whether and to what extent are above challenges reflected in the levels of food insecurity among the urban poor in Gaborone.

• The report is based on the results of a baseline survey conducted in 2008-2009 by researchers at University of Botswana.

Survey Methodology• The African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN)

undertook a baseline study in 11 cities in countries in Southern Africa, including Gaborone. The survey data contains information for 6,500 households (henceforth H/H) and 28,700 individuals in the cities, a sample of 400 H/Hs selected in Gaborone. The sampled H/Hs was drawn from three of Gaborone’s poorer areas; Old Naledi (150 H/Hs), White City/Bontleng (125 H/Hs) and Boadhurst (125 H/Hs) (Figure 2).

• These areas low-income, congested, and overcrowded settlement and located right in the middle of Gaborone city.

Figure 2: Location of Survey Sites in gaborone

• The AFSUN survey used four international cross-cultural scales developed by Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project (FANTA) to assess levels of Food insecurity in Gaborone namely:

• Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS): this measures the degree of Food insecurity during the month prior to the survey. The minimum score is 0 and the maximum is 27. The higher the score, the more food insecurity the household experienced.

• Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence (HFIAP): it uses the responses to HFIAP questions to group households into four levels of household food insecurity: food secure, mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure and severely food insecure.

• Household Dietary Scale (HDDS): Dietary diversity refers to how many groups were consumed within the household in the previous 24 hours. The minimum number, based on the FAO classification of food groups for Africa, is 12. An increase in the average number of different food groups consumed provides a quantifiable measure of improved household food access.

• Month of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHEFP):the indicator captures changes in the household’s ability to ensure that food is available above minimum level the year round. Households are asked to identify in which months (during the past 12 months) they did not have access to sufficient food to meet their household needs.

Household Profile

Economic Characteristics

Contd. Of Economic Characteristics

Levels of Food Insecurity

Contd. Level of Food Insecurity

Urban Food sources• Households were asked three questions about their

food sources: (a) where they normally obtain their food; (b) how frequently they obtain food from these sources; and (c) where they obtained food in the previous week.

• Supermarkets• Botswana’s proximity to South Africa has meant that it

is increasingly integrated into supermarket-driven food supply chains that dominate that country’s food retail sector.

• Supermarkets in handle about 50-60% of food retail in cities and major urban villages in Botswana. See the location of supermarket in Gaborone below.

Sources of food

Informal and Small Retail Food Economy• According CSO (2007), Botswana’s informal economy

has been expanding very fast in the recent years.• There are 44,000 informal enterprises of which

28,000 were owned by women. This was 54% increase from 1999. Gaborone has the highest informal enterprises (11,000 or 23% of the total).

• This study suggested that the presence of South African supermarkets and the absence of a supportive policy environment implied that the informal economy is neither large nor flourishing.

• This might suggest that the informal food economy in Gaborone is not the major source of food for the urban poor.

Urban Agriculture• The Botswana Ministry of

Agriculture encourages urban and peri-urban agriculture initiatives as a policy strategy for ensuring urban food security in an era of rapid urbanization, economic decline, urban poverty and HIV and AIDS.

• Climate change limit agricultural productivity in Botswana.

• Well-educated middle-income entrepreneurs involved mainly in poultry farming. They take advantage of government funding schemes and land tenure policy in Gaborone.

Rural-Urban Transfers

Other sources • A minority of households rely on other households to meet

some of their food needs. • Food borrowing, regular food aid and food remittances. Food Insecurity and High Food Prices• BIDPA (2008) report showed that the cost of a basket of

basic foodstuffs had risen from P332 to P381 between 2006 and May 2008 prices, a real increase of 15%. The baskets include: bread flour, maize meal, meat and milk increases while cost of vegetables, sorghum, sugar and salt remained relative stable.

• Given the reliance of poor households in Gaborone on food purchase and food imports, urban dwellers are vulnerable to rapid food price increases, since government seems to focus on food price inflation and rural residents.

Conclusions and Recommendations• The result shows that not everyone is benefitting from

Botswana’s strong and growing economy.• Many of the urban poor in Gaborone experience

extremely high levels of food insecurity.• Income level is an important determinant of food

insecurity as most households access their food in the supermarkets rather than growing it.

• Recommendations• Sufficient food is available on diverse access points.

Issue is affordability. Therefore the government must encourage income earning opportunities to enable people to have enough income to purchase enough needed food.

Contd. recommendation• Feeding programmes need to be supported.• Informed economy should be accorded due

attention and support.• Entrepreneur initiatives could be better nurtured

rather than being hamstrung by numerous zoning and licensing regulations.

• Urban agriculture needs to be encouraged and supported for poor households to supplement their incomes and food intake.