Africa
The Power of Food and Fuel
by Shafinaaz Hassim
On a recent trip to Malawi the social scientist in me could not help but notice how far advanced the country was in relation to South Africa in terms of power failures, regal fuel prices and ludicrous inflation rates. And, with wry abandonment, I quickly realised the folly of not taking into consideration that we might be following in hot pursuit of such trends.
While we grapple mostly with HIV/Aids and numerous unsightly demons, Malawi is mostly labelled for its war with malaria. But just under the surface of this ploy to show the world its stately medical ills, lurks a far more insidious monster that kills and maims its people and its economy day by day. And that is hunger. Rated high up on the poverty A-List, Malawian lives are claimed daily by hunger-related diseases, and the stark shortage of maize affects both the people who crave its sustenance as well as the countries sky-rocketing inflation. According to the National Statistical Office of Malawi, January inflation stands at 7.7% with urban and rural inflation at 10.1% and 6.6% respectively. As consumer supplies such as fuel and maize plummet, food and fuel prices aim skyward at alarming speed, making for a certain rain forecast of bullets aimed at obliterating the weak and poverty stricken.
According to a UNICEF Press release during late 2007, severe malnutrition in children under-five in Malawi is on the increase. ''The numbers of malnourished children are many times higher than the normal emergency threshold,'' said UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Per Engebak. ''Immediate and urgent action is needed to save lives.''
Supplementary feeding remains low and food security is reduced to a largely unsustainable project. On a proactive level, some amount of community efforts are underway to make up for the mismanagement of natural resources. However, while these are commendable at grassroots level, they are merely survival responses by those deeply and directly affected by the lack of adequate nutrition, and are not fully sustainable malnutrition alleviation programmes that may be replicated at state level, across the board. Primarily, this would rely on funding, planning and research as well as a stable economy and natural resource base (i.e. the availability of maize product, which forms the staple food of Malawi).
So then there have been scant efforts at diversification of crop production more conducive to the serious droughts being experienced these past few years. What about the monopolising of resource by global companies? Maize and fuel are global market commodities played for supply in happily Third World Africa and fixed for price on the First World roulette tables, and the cost of this deadly game has been the lives of thousands of our children, particularly in countries like Malawi. Is it not time we got our cheap shots at entertainment in less alarming ways? Even in South Africa, we have virtually no control over the price of maize and numerous other home grown resources. Picture the scene: farmers harvest the best of our local produce and compete on podiums for the attention of global buyers (read 'gambling investors', rather). And for a mere tuppence, our maize supply is sold to grinning bidders and stored in silo's around the country, now no longer belonging to us. And this is where the games begin. The supply and demand tug-of-war creates just enough pressure to squeeze prices upward through the toothpaste tube of inflation; and we tighten our belts - the mega-rich sell off their yachts in Greece, and the poor die of hunger. This is what our lose-lose scenario looks like.
Further, in South Africa, increasing demands for biofuel in response to impending fuel crises/increases have caused maize prices to soar. Some critics suggest biofuel is not even a substantial answer to the South African fuel crisis. For decades now, the average South African needed a paraffin stove and a bag of maize meal (and of course drinkable water) in order to produce at the least, a very basic but staple nutritive meal. Global influences on steel prices have doubled the cost of the single plate version of these stoves from about R22 in 2005 to almost R50 in 2007 (manufactured locally in Botshabelo in the Free State). An alarming number had to be confiscated also, because of their proven potential to cause fires in informal shelters. Of course, there was also the price of paraffin to contend with. As of late 2007, these stoves were discontinued in favour of a newer (and ever-so-slightly more expensive) model that uses an ethanol-based gel burner (a user tells me a 500ml can of gel costs about R12 to R15 and lasts just under an hour). Ethanol is extracted, and biofuels are produced from a process using, primarily, maize. These overlapping situations have set the scene for huge debate around fuel vs food prioritising in terms of both pricing and supply.
On a clear platform that highlights and traces the pathos of scant survival experiences on the African continent, it can be seen how seemingly simple, yet necessary resources such as fuel and maize have become easily manipulated commodities of power. Malawi has already been crippled by the ramifications. The big question is could South Africa follow suite? Or should we work out how long it might take before we have to lament our own losses in retrospect?
Shafinaaz Hassim is a lecturer at the School of Sociology & Social Sciences, UKZN
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