Introduced as an intervention to mobilize Blacks back to agriculture to sustain their livelihoods, the major goal of ME is to increase community food production to ensure household food security, especially for the poor and vulnerable household. But Masibuyele Emasimini was also started as an intervention to provide mechanization support to the poor farming communities whose land was lying fallow. Such communities were to be encouraged to participate in agriculture by tilling their fields or even undertake cultivation activities in their backyards. In order to address the imbalances of the past, Masibuyele Emasimini targeted only those beneficiaries who had been previously excluded from past government interventions. The project was also supposed to supply to the neighbouring communities with food at affordable prices. This was supposed to be the case in instances where surplus food was produced by the project. It was also envisaged that proper implementation of ME would not only create jobs for the local community, but also increase the participants‟ income through crop sales.
Where possible, Masibuyele Emasimini was also supposed to promote other sectors in rural areas through the agricultural backward and forward linkages. From the foregoing observation, it can be seen that whilst ME had several other objectives, it was a programme that was essentially to ensure food security at the household level.
2.5.1 Ensuring Food Security at Household Level
Food insecurity continues to threaten large proportions of households in third world countries though it is also common among the absolute poor in middle income countries and some rich countries.
19 Against this observation, the ME programme in Mpumalanga ventured out as indicated to ensure that the local communities of New Forest are food secure. But in order to establish whether the programme achieved one of its objectives (ensuring food security), it is vital to explore how communities make sure that they are food secure.
According to Coetzee (2003) food insecurity, at a household-level, government plays a critical role in ensuring that households are food secure through the adoption of a wide range of policies and programmes. Altman et al. (2009) note that such policies should aim at ensuring that the required food consumption level us met and reducing the risk of the poor losing access to food. Therefore, the initial step with regard to ensuring food security is for government to establish an assessment system to establish how secure the government itself, the districts and the regions are food secure. De Klerk et al. (2004) observe that through such an assessment system actions relating to malnutrition and food security in particular are assessed, analysed and evaluated. It is vital that communities are involved in the evaluation and analysis process to ensure success.
There is need to note that the ability to implement policies and monitor their effect is at least as important as the ability to design them (policies). It is therefore important that all activities designed to bring about food security are integrated into a continuous process. This ensures that that initial mistakes in policy conception are corrected, and that adjustments are made as circumstances change.
Food security can also be achieved through the country‟s the general development strategy, such a strategy greatly influences the food security of its households. For example if the strategy is developmental, it will not only support sustainable agriculture, it will also support rapid growth in labour-intensive small industries (Devereux et al. 2008 and Aliber 2009).
On the other hand, household food security can greatly be influenced by macro-economic policy adjustments in a country. Altman et al. (2009) reveal that adjustments in pricing policies, currency values could negatively affect agriculture. Inefficient market interventions and government expenditures too could also depress production and incomes (particularly rural). All these factors reduce the access to food, especially for the poor. While some adjustment measures may be implemented to ensure food security. The Department Of Agriculture (2001) has indicated that in several instances they lead to short-run insecurity especially among the urban poor and net consumers (wage-earners, landless) in rural areas. This is especially the case because such programmes could
20 lead to increase in food prices, rising unemployment, and reduced budget allocations to social sectors.
In this regard Cox, Mak, Jahn, and Mot, (2001) advise that government should be in position to put compensatory measures to cushion the people against the adverse effects of policy adjustment.
Ensuring sustainable agriculture by giving fair prices for farm output and inputs is one other way of ensuring food security. Fair agricultural prices work as an incentive to farmers to produce and sustain the production of agricultural goods. Furthermore government should also be in position to manage and solve problems related to erosion, groundwater depletion, and pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, and problems of pest resurgences. But whilst it is important to give fair prices to the farmers, Baiphethi & Jacobs (2009) caution against artificially high wages. This coupled with improvements in marketing, distribution, and agro-industries, as well as promoting the contribution of the private sector in job creation will no doubt promote food security.
2.5.2 Increase Neighbouring Communities‟ Access to Food and Individual Families‟ Farm Income Enabling access to food by neighbouring households, means that participants in the ME project have to produce more than they needed for their own consumption. This calls for a number of interventions. First, ME participants would require some financial support in form of credit to finance their agricultural activities. With regard to increasing farm income, it would be vital for the ME to diversify their finance generating activities According to Owusu and Abdulai (2009) this can be done by introducing the possibility of increased opportunities for off-farm work in the area. The implication of the foregoing observation is that is that diversification of household activities is a major key to household food security. Owusu and Abdulai (2009) reports for instance that in Malawi, in areas where farms are not large enough for households to be food secure from subsistence farming alone, a number of households access other income generating activities. Such households are indeed more food secure than households that do not diversify. Cash cropping and off-farm work are important income sources for these households. It should, however, be noted that the type of activity which will improve the food situation for most of individual households will depend on household composition and resources (Department of Agriculture 2011).
2.5.3 Creation of Jobs and Ensuring Large Scale Food Production
21 ME as an agricultural programme also aimed at creating jobs for the local community. Because the project would be mechanized, it was envisaged that individuals from the local communities would be trained in the use of farm machines and implements like tractors. It was also envisaged that where possible the programme would promote other sectors in rural areas through the agricultural backward and forward linkages. The objectives as explained in the foregoing paragraphs were supposed to be realized through encouraging community members to till fallow land and realize economic benefits and preventing agricultural land being converted to other competing land uses. The government was also supposed to provide production inputs in addition to training of community members in tractor operations and production aspects so as to ensure sustainability of the program me.(Masibuyele Emasimini 2011). Whilst Masibuyele Emasimini programme was designed to mainly ensure food security in the community, available literature indicates that there are numerous challenges that are linked to ensuring food security in a country like South Africa. Some of these challenges are explored in the ensuing sections.