Drought in South Africa and escalating food prices have led the Department of Basic Education to start reviewing the menus for the national school nutrition programme – an initiative which provides meals to millions of pupils across the country.
And the Western Cape Education Department said it may, as a last resort, have to reduce the portion sizes of meals for pupils if it cannot secure additional funding.
At a recent meeting of the Council of Education Ministers, MEC of Education Debbie Schäfer expressed concern about the increasing cost of food items and its impact on the feeding programme.
The Western Cape Education Department has set aside about R315.3 million for its feeding programme for the 2016/17 financial year.
“Just this month, we received an additional bill of R6 million from our service provider to cover these increases and it does not seem likely that these pressures will ease over the next year,” she said.
The menus were designed by dietitians and the meals typically included rice, samp, soya mince, a protein, fruit, vegetables, bread and peanut butter.
Last week, the Cape Argus reported that consumers could expect to pay more for food this year because inflation was at its highest level in almost seven years.
The National Agricultural Marketing Council, which monitors food prices at retail level, said it was “scary” that the poor were already spending 53 percent of their disposable income on food.
Some foods, such as potatoes, cost twice as much as they did at the same time last year.
