FoodBank South Africa

Today is World Food Day! One of the questions we are often asked when we state the fact that if 14 million South Africans face hunger, why we do not see the same pictures of widespread severe malnutrition as we do see in the rest of Africa.  One of the answers lies in the fact that there is a lot of philanthropy happening in the townships that is done by neighbours, friends and family -- often by people with resources far fewer than the average reader of the blog.  Extending this philanthropic spirit to everyone in South Africa should be our goal if we are to end hunger in our lifetime.  We need to create Philanthropy Mzansi!

Many of us had mothers who, when encouraging us not to waste food, denied us dessert until we had "finished everything on our plate".  If Mother Earth did the same thing, all of us who buy food from a retail store would never get any pudding!

In their first lunch-time conversation, the Lunch Gang, chatted about the fact that we have enough food in South Africa, and the irony that in a country with enough food, we still have 30% of our population going hungry. Find out how much food South Africa produces per person, and why, even though we are a net importer of food, we still can claim we produce enough food.