Common Country Assessment - Swaziland, 1997

Contents | Introduction | Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Livelihoods | Advancement/Empowerment of Women | Child Rights/Child Development/Child Protection | Education | Population | Environment | Health | STD/HIV/AIDS | Food Security/Nutrition | Governance and Participation | Institution Building | Summary and Conclusion

Chapter Ten - Food Security/Nutrition

"A household, community, or nation is food secure when all of its members have adequate access to sufficient quantities of food to ensure an active and healthy life at all times, whether through home production or purchase. Food security is achieved by:

• having enough food present at all times in the community/nation to feed the population;
• households having the means for obtaining that food;
• individuals consuming a sufficient and balanced diet; and
• assurance that the first three conditions will be met.

The first is called food availability, the second is called food access, the third nutrition and the last risk."¹

10.1 FOOD SECURITY

The above definition of food security is a useful one in that it places the emphasis where it belongs - in market enfranchisement, having something to trade - as opposed to the notion of food self-sufficiency. As referred to above, poverty means not only income poverty, but extremely limited "choices and opportunities for a tolerable life."

From that point of view, food production can be seen as just another means of market enfranchisement towards food security and beyond, like production of any other goods or services. The difference that you can eat your product if it’s food is trivial - you can wear the clothes that you make. But no-one on their own produces a ‘sufficient and balanced diet’, so the emphasis on food security is upon the maximisation of economic opportunity.

That is why over eighty percent of holders of SNL supplement their income from elsewhere, and much less than half the average SNL household's income (both cash and kind) comes from agricultural production. It is also an important reason, although certainly not the only one, for the raising of cattle: they are thought of as ‘banks on hoofs’. Cattle are estimated to produce an annual increase in value of 22-25 percent, and therefore represent one of the very few opportunities for market enfranchisement open to those outside the formal sector.

The following further reinforces that interpretation:

Source: SHIES 1995, Table 8.1.9, p.53

Consequently, urban households - on average half the size of rural households - live on a much higher economical level than rural households, with 3.8 times higher consumption per capita. They spend E845 per calendar month compared to E446 pcm by rural households - almost twice the expenditure with half the number of household members. Therefore, despite having access to land for food production (compared to the urban areas where food production is minimal), ‘poverty in Swaziland [and lack of food security] is essentially a rural phenomenon.’⁴

Even so, the percentage of the poor in urban areas - defined by being below the food poverty line of E47.70 per person per calendar month in 1994/95 - is approximately the same as the percentage of the population in urban areas: 17.29 percent of those below the food poverty line are in urban areas, compared to 22.5 percent of the total population.⁵ That is, the income disparities are far higher in urban than in rural areas; however, the deeper levels of poverty predominate in the rural areas.

There are therefore three aspects to address in improving food security - enterprise development, natural resource management, and disaster preparedness. Of these, enterprise development is by far the most important in this context: sustainable natural resource management is critical in a broader context, and disaster relief is the ‘last resort’ fallback position - the safety net that encourages economic activity.

Enterprise Development

Education is a means of having services to sell and there is a discernible improvement in food security as a result (despite the number in the household increasing with the highest educational level):

Source: CSO, SHIES, 1995, pp. 56-57

However, education is only one of the main means of having something to sell. Development of a culture of entrepreneurship is a more fundamental means in this context. Entrepreneurship is variously defined, but perhaps best as "an innovative and value-adding economic activity".⁶ "Entrepreneurship is one of the most important driving forces for innovations, increasing market efficiencies and responding to challenges and opportunities. Small and medium size entrepreneurs, in particular, play a very important role in the social and economic development of a country".⁷ Education has the potential to play a central role in development of such a culture, but this cannot be said to be currently the case in Swaziland.

As it is for sustainable livelihoods, human development - inclusive but not limited to education - is a fundamental for the emergence of a culture of entrepreneurship. In other words, a culture of entrepreneurship requires a culture of encouragement for its emergence. That is why "individual entrepreneurs, given the chance, seem almost to emerge out of nowhere in societies without a history of entrepreneurship".⁶ Such entrepreneurs emerge from communities of members possessed with the qualities of individual drive, self-regulation, and autonomy, and insofar as those qualities are stifled, so is enterprise development. ⁶

Meaningful cooperation towards enterprise development can only occur after individuals with those qualities have emerged, not before. Throughout the world, societal attitudes that stifle such emergence include apathy and indifference, theft, and disrespect for honest labour coupled with the aggressive envy of those whose earnings are high even if they are acquired honestly. Trustworthiness (moral integrity), motivation for profit, scepticism, open-mindedness, cognitive complexity, willingness to take risks, and the ability to innovate, make purposeful decisions, and persevere in the face of adversity are other qualities identified as desirable for enterprise development.⁶

Such qualities are difficult to quantify in a society, but their consequences should be partly reflected in private sector job creation.

Sources: West, 1996, pp. 27, 115; CSO Employment Wages, 1995, p.1., 1997 Provisional Census Results

Other indicators include the figures for employment as ‘Proprietors & Partners’ and ‘Small Swazi Traders’, as follows:

Source: CSO, Employment & Wages, 1995

The above indicators imply that there are enormous challenges ahead in the area of enterprise development in Swaziland. His Majesty’s Enterprise Fund - commonly referred to as the E44 million fund - has the potential to be a significant step in addressing these challenges.

Natural Resource Management

Recent reports have pointed out that there are many as yet unexploited opportunities for improving production on SNL⁸, particularly in the context of crop diversification. The dominance of maize as a crop is more from inertia than reason, although there is a ‘chicken-and-egg’ relationship between embarking upon a new crop and having the marketing mechanisms in place. By use of the agro-ecological zoning concept significant improvements are possible without water supplements, but there is no doubt that there is far greater potential for improving income on SNL with them. The PPA survey quoted water supply as being a perceived problem by 92 percent of the community groups, compared to 71 percent for health care, 60 percent for roads/transport, 51 percent for schooling, 38 percent for crime, only 36 percent for unemployment, 25 percent for food/hunger, and 23 percent for access to markets.⁹

Access to water to SNL smallholders would therefore appear to be a fundamental if they are to use their land resource to improve food security - an option not as dependent upon education as many of the alternatives, and thus more accessible to the poor. Yet there is an acute shortage of water for rural development, such that there has been no new water apportionments granted since November 1993. In this context, the water consumption figures make interesting reading:

Rural 330 litres/second;
Urban 690 ltrs/sec. (Mbabane 160, Manzini 200);
Industrial 550 ltrs/sec.
Livestock 230 ltrs/sec.
Irrigation 53,000 ltrs/sec.

Disaster Preparedness

The third aspect of food security - risk - can be palliated by government and social support mechanisms. On the government side, disaster preparedness is generally regarded as inadequate, and there are plans to improve the functioning of the National Disaster Task Force. As in many other areas of activity, there was a distrust in this aspect within communities - of outsiders in general and government representatives in particular. On the social side, the support of the extended family is still the most effective safety net, although it is weakening. As whole extended families may be under the same disastrous conditions, it inevitably has its limitations. The local traditional leadership was often seen as impotent or even a hindrance, with all other support organisations - informal community institutions, local churches, women’s organisations, farmers’ credit schemes, external NGOs and aid agencies, and government agencies - having their strengths and weaknesses, but not adding up to anywhere near the levels of support required. Fear of losing what little one has remains a substantial inhibition to enterprise.

The most widespread recent form of disaster has been drought. However, droughts are a regular part of the climate cycle in the region, so methodologies should be put in place that accepts such conditions as a given rather than the exceptional circumstances connoted by the word ‘disaster’.

10.2 NUTRITION

"About one-third of Swazi children fail to grow as well as they should during the first five years of life, resulting in a high prevalence of chronic malnutrition or nutritional stunting. Acute malnutrition - wasting - was found to be very rare in a sample survey, but cases are reported from hospitals. A study of the relationship between the prevalence of nutritional stunting and a range of socioeconomic variables confirmed the fact that nutritional stunting is more likely to occur in families with the least resources, especially access to cash income, potable water, sanitation and education."¹¹ These views, expressed in a 1983 survey report of the National Nutrition Council, are still applicable today. At that time, it was also reported that "young children and pregnant women are traditionally restricted in their access to high prestige foods. Pregnant women may not be allowed milk, eggs, liver and kidneys while young children are not given fish or eggs."¹² Stunting was then found in about one-third of all children between 18 months and five years: current estimates are at similar levels.

Like almost any single source of nutrition, the staple crop, maize, has significant nutritional limitations. Variety is required, such as roots, tubers, pulses, legumes, Amaranthus, ligusha, pumpkin and cereals (such as sorghum) are often consumed by poor families living in marginal agricultural areas. The many factors which determine malnutrition include lack of parental knowledge, inadequate income, diseases, cropping patterns and the low status of women.¹³

With per capita daily calorie supply at 105 percent of requirements, it could be said that Swaziland has sufficient nutritional resources, but that ignores the distribution of food. The children of the poor are the hardest hit. Breast feeding was started by 90 percent of mothers, but not sustained exclusively for long enough, with only 8 percent keeping exclusively to breast feeding for the first 4-6 months of life.¹⁴

There are plans in place to reduce chronic malnutrition to 10 percent, low birth weight to 5 percent, eliminate acute malnutrition, and to increase monitoring coverage from the present 82 percent to 100 percent by the year 2000.¹⁵

A 1993 survey indicated that the severe Total Goitre Rate, caused by lack of iodine in the diet, was between six and thirty-eight percent, depending upon the geographical location. In 1955 a survey also noted a considerable regional variation (goitre from 4-71% among school children) with an overall average prevalence of 26%. By the simple expedient of iodizing salt, massive losses in human development terms could have been avoided - "goitre, mental retardation, impaired intelligence, deaf mutism and an increasing prevalence of stillbirths and miscarriages."¹⁶ Many new cases will be avoided by enforcing the new legislation to this effect - the Salt Iodization Regulations, 1997 - and from purchase of South Africa’s salt, which has been compulsorily iodized since 1995. However the damage to intellectual development already caused is permanent, ranging from cretinism to an IQ around 10 points lower than children receiving adequate amounts of iodine. As with the effects of lead poisoning, the effects upon those already physically and intellectually mature are generally less destructive, but can still be very harmful.

Policies to ensure that at least 80 percent of all children under two years receive enough vitamin A are currently being formulated to address the 46 percent level with marginal vitamin A status (serum vitamin A <201g/dL) uncovered in a survey by the National Nutrition Council in 1995. The same survey found that 7 percent of the children studied (6-71 months old) had vitamin A deficiency (serum vitamin A <101g/dL). Fourteen percent of the same cohort suffered from iron depletion (serum ferretin concentration <121g/dL) - which was markedly higher in urban areas - and one in twenty of them had iron deficiency anemia (haemoglobin <11g/dL and ferretin <121g/dL).¹⁷

1. GOS/MEPD/MOAC. 1996. National Development Strategy, Swaziland: The Agriculture, Land and Rural Development Sector. (Draft). Mbabane. p.27.
2. Refer CSO, 1995. Swaziland Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Mbabane. p.4.
3. Ibid., p. 43-44.
4. MEPD, 1997, p.5.
5. CSO: 1995 Poverty Profile in Swaziland. Mbabane. p. 41.
6. Berger, B. (ed.) 1991. The Culture of Entrepreneurship. San Francisco. ICS Press.
7. 7. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. 1992. Earth Summit. London. The Regency Press.
8. For example, refer Remmelzwaal & Mc Dermott (Eds), 1997: Towards Sustainable Production and Land Rehabilitation in Swaziland. (Draft).MOAC/UNDP/FAO. Mbabane.
9. MEPD, 1997, p.14.
10. MEPD, 1997, p.39.
11. Ibid, p.21.
12. FAO. 1988. National Nutrition Country Profile - Swaziland.
13. C/- MHUD, 1990, p.56.
14. GOS / UNICEF, 1994, p.4
15. MEPD, 1996, .171.
16. MEPD, 1996, p. 170.
17. NNC. 1997. Swaziland Nutrition News. No.1. May 1997.

Food Security/Nutrition Indicators

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