GLOBALISATION, URBANISATION
AND FOOD SECURITY
GABORONE URBAN FOOD SECURITY
SURVEY CONDUCTED BY AFSUN
REPORT PRESENTED BY BEN ACQUAH
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS, UB
OUTLINE
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INTRODUCTION
GROWTH OF GABORONE
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
RESULTS OF SURVEY
Household Profile of Respondents
Demographic Characteristics
Economic Characteristics
Levels of Food Insecurity
OUTLINE (continued)
• Urban Food Sources
– Supermarkets
– Informal and Small Retail Food Economy
– Urban Agriculture
– Rural Urban Transfers
– Other Sources of Food
Food Insecurity and High Food Prices
CONCLUSIONS 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
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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.
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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.