February 11^th, 2026

Dear President Ramaphosa,

URGENT: CALL FOR UNITED ACTION IN SOUTH AFRICA TO END THE CRIME OF HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION

On October 16, 2025, World Food Day, you made a brave and bold statement acknowledging the crisis of hunger and malnutrition that blights our people. In particular, you called out the corporate food retailers who make excessive, immoral profits from the fundamental, unavoidable need of all people to eat.

South Africa is a country where food is plentiful, but hunger is rife. We supported your statements. On that day, we handed your officials a memorandum, setting out actions that could end hunger and pointing out that “hungry people can’t eat policies.”

To that, we might add promises.

Because, unfortunately, action has not followed your words.

The Union Against Hunger, a coalition of more than 50 organisations, is particularly concerned about the snail’s pace and confusion around the new National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (NFNSP). Last October, a draft of the NFNSP (which civil society has made extensive inputs into) was supposed to have been handed to the Minister of Agriculture, to be finalised by Cabinet and then published for public consultation.

None of this has happened!

The last government plan on food and nutrition security expired in 2023. That means SA has been without a plan on food for three years, as malnutrition has been rising, and as threats to food security – such as global heating – have been increasing.

While 10,000 children die of hunger a year, while people beg and steal food, there is no urgency. Why?

Food is essential to the constitutional rights to life, dignity and equality; without food, children cannot grow or achieve their best at school; without food, or when people can only afford cheap but unhealthy foods, we face a rising burden of disease.

That is why “everyone has a right to sufficient food and water” and why every child has a right to basic nutrition.

Tomorrow in SONA, you will set out the government’s priorities for the next year. We therefore call on you, even at this late moment, to add to your speech the recognition that SA must urgently and holistically address the hunger crisis. Order the Minister of Agriculture to publish the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan by the end of March 2026; engage in meaningful public consultation on it through the National Dialogue and a Parliamentary process; establish a multi-stakeholder National Food and Nutrition Security Council; sign and begin to implement the NFNSP by World Food Day, 2026.

We also call on you to repeat your call on food retailers to drop prices and profits on an essential basket of foodstuff without any conditions. Introduce legal measures to stop excessive profiteering by Shoprite and others who sell food at inflated prices. At the same time, the most vulnerable workers in the food system, such as farm workers, need government protection. How can it be that so many people who grow and produce our food cannot afford healthy food themselves?

In addition, the Union Against Hunger:

• Supports the call made by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), the #PayTheGrants coalition, and others to raise social grants to be above the Food Poverty Line of R855 per month.
• Supports the call made by the Maternal Support Grant Advocacy group for the urgent introduction of a Maternal Support Grant.
• Supports Real Reform for ECD’s Right to Nutrition Campaign, which calls for the urgent implementation of a comprehensive and adequately funded national ECD nutrition programme to ensure that all eligible young children in early learning programmes receive daily nutritious meals, in line with Section 28 of the Constitution.
• Calls on government departments to provide reports on their actions to realise the right to food at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) national inquiry into food systems in March 2026;

Under your leadership, South Africa successfully hosted the G20 in 2025. Food security featured strongly. One recommendation of the T20 is to “Build equitable food systems.” The SONA must reflect on the G20 and clarify how South Africa will take forward such resolutions.

We believe that South Africa’s current food system is not in the interest of people, their health or their wellbeing. It’s profit-driven and detrimental to the people and the planet.

We urge you to lead our country in transforming  the food system and ending hunger and malnutrition to save lives and futures.

The Union Against Hunger