Families are either eating less or going into debt as a means to put food on the table.
Meryl Abrahams, director of the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action (Pacsa) listed the foods and the increase in price.
Maize meal has increased by 32%, rice by 19%, sugar 28% and cooking oil 22%. Food prices are increasing substantially. The drought has had a major impact together with the fluctuations of the rand/dollar exchange.
— Meryl Abrahams, Casac
From our focus groups, people have run out of food by the second week of the month and either have to go into debt to purchase more or they have to eat less.
— Meryl Abrahams, Casac
Abrahams told Stephen Grootes that this has led to more health related problems like obesity and non communicable diseases. Listen here:
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