Break bread with the needy

TODAY on World Food Day, we are told that it is an international day celebrated every year worldwide on 16 October to commemorate the date of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945. Go figure!

This tidbit about the founding of the day falls into the realm of useless information if it cannot translate into hungry mouths being fed.

As you sit down to contemplate the kaleidoscope of your ‘seven colours’ meal at lunch time, spare a thought for the millions of South Africans - many in your own backyard, who have no idea where their next meal will come from. Food insecurity is no longer a myth, especially if you live in neighbourhoods where the knock on the door may well precede a request for food. That people go to bed hungry is no longer a cliche. It is as certain as the sun rising from the east and setting in the west.

You will surely not need to be persuaded by statistics that 795 million people worldwide will go to bed hungry tonight – it is a lived experience you’re well aware of. Somewhere in the paper today is a review of the book Rise, the autobiography of Springbok rugby captain Siya Kolisi. In the book, in his own words, he tells the story of begging for food in his youth in Zwide, the township of his birth in what is now known as Gqeberha.

It is an all-too familiar South African story – of poverty, lack and hunger.

Kolisi says he knows the sound of a grumbling stomach. So too do many other people, millions of them who will, today still, not get enough food to nourish their bodies. If you’re still able to throw out food or leave it long enough that it should go off, take a moment to think of those who can do with the morsel you discard. Hunger, like poverty in general, is man-made.

If we set our minds to eradicate hunger, we could do it tomorrow. The next generations could read about hunger the same way they hear of dinosaurs, as something that occurred in the distant past.

If restaurants and supermarket chains can dispense of left-overs, this should be the clearest sign that hunger is manufactured. South Africa is fortunate that it still boasts a thriving agricultural sector. There’s enough food for every single 57 million of us, and then some. We can easily ask for seconds without threatening the national food banks. As a start, break bread with the needy today.