A Study of Current and Future Realities for Urban Food Security in South Africa
2015, Report for South African Cities Network, Johannesburg.
The brief for the study requested a particular focus on urban agriculture as this is the most common programmatic response by municipalities to food insecurity. However, in reviewing national large-scale surveys and smaller case studies, very little evidence
was found to support the assertion that urban agriculture is an effective means of addressing food insecurity for the most vulnerable households. Uptake of urban food production varies widely across the country, but is generally low. There is an extremely weak evidence base on what is being produced, by whom and how production impacts food security. Without such
data the dominance of urban agriculture as the programmatic response cannot be justified.
