Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

What monsters lurk in the dark?: The impact of loadshedding on food systems in South Africa

14 March 2023 | Story Prof Frikkie Maré | Photo Supplied

Prof Frikkie Mare — Prof Frikkie Maré is the Academic Departmental Head: Agricultural Economics, University of the Free State

Opinion article by Prof Frikkie Maré, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of the Free State.

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a state of disaster due to the electricity crisis and the appointment of the new Minister of Electricity in the Presidency, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. Although there are many arguments for and against the state of disaster and the position of a Minister of Electricity, I think all South Africans agree that drastic measures must be taken to improve the current situation. However, I do not think the state of disaster, or the Minister of Electricity will bring any quick fixes to the table, and therefore we have to assume the crisis will remain in the short to medium term.

The Cause of the Crisis

As South Africans, our biggest crisis at this stage is load shedding. We are confronted with darkness daily, or even twice or thrice a day. Although the impact of load shedding varies according to the time of day it is implemented, it generally hinders us from doing our work, preparing food, and relaxing in front of the television after work. It directly impacts the quality of life of those who need electricity for oxygen machines for them to breathe. It causes damage to our electrical appliances, especially due to power surges when the electricity is turned back on. In short, load shedding is disrupting our lives. It is a nuisance we do not need, and the sooner it ends, the better.

Load shedding may be be a crisis for us as citizens, but it is Eskom’s solution to keep the national grid from collapsing. Thus, the real cause of the crisis is not load shedding but the inability of Eskom to supply enough electricity to meet the demand. The second big concern is the rising cost of electricity in South Africa. From 2007 to 2022, electricity prices increased by 653% in an attempt by Eskom to increase revenue to try and catch up with its heavy debt burden while simultaneously trying to maintain the current power stations and add some new generation capacity.

The problem

South Africa, up until load shedding started in 2007, was always praised as one of the countries in the world with the most stable electricity supply, and electricity was priced among the lowest in the world. Our economy thus developed around the national grid and is heavily reliant on it. Given the above, our food system faces three problems. First and most visible is load shedding that is causing interrupted national power supply and increasing production and processing costs as fuel generators and solar power must be relied on. Secondly, the cost of food production, processing, and distribution increases sharply as national electricity prices increase. Third, new investments in the food chain are discouraged as it is heavily reliant on electricity, which there is not enough of.

The impact

Over the last number of months, the media was full of the impact of load shedding on the food system in South Africa. Visually it ranged from photos and videos of withered irrigated crops which failed as there were not enough hours of electricity to supply water. There were pictures of chicken farms full of dead broilers that died when the heating and ventilation systems could not function during load shedding. Many articles also warned that load shedding would hurt food security in South Africa as it would not be possible to produce or process enough food.

These reported impacts of load shedding on food security caused quite a frenzy among consumers as people tend to run with what is announced in headlines without reading or understanding the context. Consumers immediately fear a situation where there will be insufficient food in South Africa as the headlines read that food security is under pressure.

Yes, although all the photos, videos and articles in the news might be true and certainly do impact food security, we must also remember that food security is a combination of the availability and affordability of food.

The impact of load shedding on food production depends on the type of production system. While load shedding has a minimal impact on extensive red meat production, it can be detrimental to intensive systems like poultry production, especially if electrical heating is used to regulate the temperature. It also negatively affects producers relying on irrigation to water their crops as the quality and quantity of the crop will be influenced.

The effect of load shedding can be severe on certain primary producers and even cause farming operations to close. Still, it will not necessarily result in a food shortage in the country as our primary agricultural sector is diverse. However, the price of certain commodities will increase due to a lower supply and higher production costs, negatively influencing food affordability.

The larger problem with load shedding can be found in terms of processing the food, especially fresh produce reliant on a sustained cold chain. For food safety and quality reasons, fresh produce must be kept at constant temperatures, and processors and distributors thus have no choice but to use expensive private electricity generation, further pushing up the cost of food.

Another problem is that, for example, the cold rooms of processors are connected to generators, as power failures might happen even when load shedding is not a problem. Still, the processing line cannot operate without grid-supplied electricity. Although there is thus enough food in the country on a commodity level, these commodities cannot be processed into final food products as fast as in the past. This bottle-neck effect further reduces the supply of food products and increases their price.

We often forget about the impact of load shedding on the consumers’ food choices. If you need electricity to prepare food, the availability of electricity at the time you need to prepare it will affect what you eat. The problem is that more affordable foods usually take longer to prepare, while the quick-to-prepare, ready-to-eat fast foods are expensive. The higher demand for these more expensive products due to load shedding puts further upward pressure on the price of food.

So where are the monsters?

The electricity crisis impacts all roleplayers in the food value chain, from primary producers to final consumers. Although load shedding is the most visible monster here, the fast-increasing price of electricity and the general electricity shortage that discourages future investment are also lurking in the dark and contributing to problems in the overall food system. In my opinion, the electricity crisis currently does not yet threaten food security in terms of availability. Still, it is creating a monster in terms of food prices (inflation) and thus making food less affordable.

Although private solar power and fuel generators do assist in alleviating some of the influences of the electricity crises, it is not the solution. The problem with solar power, for users requiring large amounts of electricity, is that it is too expensive to install storage capacity (batteries) to use during the night. You also have a problem when it is overcast and rainy, so solar is a mere addition to supplement the national grid during the day. On the other hand, fuel generators can supply electricity 24 hours a day. Still, only the fuel cost to generate 1kW is double what Eskom charges, making it too expensive in the long run.

In my view, the only option to ensure the sustainability of the food value chain in future is to get the national electricity grid functional again. There are many short-term solutions, but none is currently sustainable enough to provide affordable energy needs. Although it will certainly take time to get Eskom fully functional again, I do not think we will run out of food in South Africa. However, we must tighten our belts to be able to afford food while the monsters lurk in the dark.

For more information contact Frikkie Maré at MareFA@ufs.ac.za

News Archive

During 2011: Appointments

2011-12-01

Dr Lis Lange: Senior Director: DIRAP

Dr Lis Lange, an Argentinean by birth, immigrated to South Africa twenty years ago – a few weeks after Nelson Mandela had walked through the gates of Victor Verster. For the past ten years, she has been involved in quality assurance for higher education institutions at the Council on Higher Education at national level.

She is assisting our university in the areas of quality assurance and academic planning, contributing to the development of deep intellectual debate and multi-disciplinary research.

Prof. Charles Dumas, Department of Drama and Theatre Arts

Prof. Charles Dumas, Extraordinary Professor in our Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, will be spending three months per year for the next three years at our university to help develop filmmaking, specifically focusing on the development of the Video Unit Planned for the Department.

Prof. Dumas started the year off with the production, Our Father’s Daughters, which was produced during the Mini-festival as well as at the Reitz Four reconciliation meeting. The production was also turned into a short film. Prof. Dumas gave film-acting classes to the third-year drama students. He directed multiple productions, such as the third-year module production Ipi Zombi, the Grahamstown Festival production, Seven Guitars and the Dance/drama production, Race, Reconciliation and the Reitz Four.

Prof. Daniel Plaatjies, UFS Business School

Prof. Daniel Plaatjies is the former Director and Head of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was mainly responsible for the leading, directing and managing of strategic academic programmes, teaching, research, governance, service management and monitoring. Prof. Plaatjies, who was appointed as Visiting Professor at our Business School this year, will as part of his new duties at our Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, be lecturing part-time and supervise our PhD students.

Prof. Johann Neethling, Department of Private Law

Prof. Johann Neethling’s career is now completing its full circle with his appointment as Senior Professor in our Department of Private Law. In 1965 he was a first-year at this university. With his nine law text books and nearly 200 articles, together with 40 years’ experience in academic training he is of inestimable value to this Department. His publications contribute to the establishment of our university as a research institute.

Prof. Hussein Solomon, Department of Political Science

Description: 2011 Appointments_Hussein Solomon Tags: 2011 Appointments_Hussein Solomon

Prof. Hussein Solomon joined our university this year as Senior Professor in the Department of Political Science. Formerly he worked in peace NGOs, advised diplomats and acts as a serving officer in the South African Air Force.

His area of research expertise includes conflict and conflict resolution in Africa; South African Foreign Policy; international relations theory; religious fundamentalism and population movements within the developing world. He is also the author of a number of books, including one on global jihad and one on India's secret relationship with apartheid South Africa.

He is also member of the internationally renowned Our Humanity in the Balance (OHIB) organisation, where his role is to bring these disparate communities together and to focus energies on a common project.

Prof. André Keet, International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice

Prof. André Keet, our Director of the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice, joined the University of Pretoria on a part-time basis in 2008, whilst being a Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Equality. Later he left the Commission and joined the University of Fort Hare. “I was happy to join academia and now also serve on the Stellenbosch University Council; therefore I am very aware of the challenges facing higher education,” he said.

His vision for the Institute is to support higher-education transformation, promote non-discrimination, reconciliation and human rights, build national, regional and international networks, and developing ‘new’ languages, knowledge and discourses for reconciliation and social justice, all to the benefit of our university and South Africa.”

Prof. Helene Strauss, Department of English

Prof. Helene Strauss completed her PhD at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, where she taught courses on Film Studies, Children’s Literature and South African Literature and Culture. “I was subsequently appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.” She joined our Department of English this year.

Prof. Strauss has an on-going preoccupation with questions concerning social justice, race, gender and ethical interpersonal interaction in South Africa and beyond.

Prof. EC Ejiogu, Centre for Africa Studies

After 22 years in the United States of America, Prof. EC Ejiogu decided to return to Africa – to his roots – to join our university’s Centre for Africa Studies at the beginning of 2011.

Before joining the Centre, he was Assistant Research Professor in the Centre for Innovation at the University of Maryland, College Park. As Senior Researcher at the Centre, he has already helped with the streamlining of the academic programme, restructuring it to enable students to gain skills necessary to deliver a research proposal towards a dissertation after their three years of study. He has also taken up PhD and Master’s supervision.

His latest publications include a book published in March 2011 with the title, Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria, and a book co-edited with Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies, Africa in focus: Governance in the 21st century, published in April 2011.

Pura Mgolombane, Vice-Dean: Student Affairs

Bringing with him a decade of experience in Student Affairs our new Assistant-Dean for Student Life and Leadership, Pura Mgolombane, has big plans for student development. He says his office wants to help Kovsies increase its throughput rate and produce socially well-adjusted and employable graduates in South Africa, the continent and anywhere in the world.

Before joining Kovsies, he was employed as Director: Student Life, Governance and Culture at Walter Sisulu University. Pura, who has a background in Human Resources, Business Management and Corporate Law, says his academic training has empowered him with skills to ensure that the Student Life and Leadership is properly led, governed and managed.

Prof. Hasina Ebrahim, School for Social Sciences and Language Education

This former academic from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal was appointed as Associate Professor at our School for Social Sciences and Language Education in the Faculty of Education. Amongst others, she is the project coordinator for the Faculty’s Early Childhood and Foundation Phase Teacher Education Programme and the MEd and PhD supervisor in the programme.

Prof. Ebrahim is also the Deputy-President of the first South African Research Association for Early Childhood Education (birth to nine). “This is certainly a milestone to profile the university in terms of its thrust towards excellence in research,” she says. One of the main aims of the association is to shape the research agenda for a marginalised field in South Africa.

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Description: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn Tags: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, a former Bloemfonteiner, attained her PhD in Microbiology at our university. Therafter, in 1999, she was appointed as a lecturer at Stellenbosch University and later as Vice-Dean.

Currently she is our Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. She hopes to sustain her research here at our University.

Her life motto? “Opportunities are presented in the form of obstacles,” she says.

Prof. Melanie Walker

Prof. Melanie Walker is a prominent South African scholar who has been working as Professor of Higher Education Studies at the world-leading University of Nottingham in the UK, where she been Director of Postgraduate Students and a Director of Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She will join the University of the Free State in February 2012 as Senior University Professor in the Postgraduate School.

She is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town, where she completed her PhD, after teaching in disadvantaged secondary schools for a number of years. Prior to working at Nottingham she worked at the Universities of Sheffield, West of England and Glasgow, as well as the Universities of Cape Town and the Western Cape. She is also a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. She is currently Director of Research Training and a senior researcher in the EU-funded Marie Curie EDUWEL project, which includes senior researchers from eight European countries and 15 early-stage researchers.

With a long-standing commitment to social-justice research and equality practices, she is currently widely recognised internationally as leading in the application of the capability approach and human development to higher education policy and practice. Among others, she has led or participated in research projects funded by the NRF (South Africa), the Higher Education Academy (UK), HEFCE (UK), EU, and ESRC/DfID, which funded the Public-Good Professionals’ Capability Index research project.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept