Addressing food security in a global pandemic
Genesis Analytics, through the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, advised the Solidarity Fund on how it could support a sustainable food production intervention to the most vulnerable households in South Africa, where livelihoods had been aggravated by Covid-19.
The Solidarity Fund required that the following targeting inform our assessment of food-production intervention options:
- Households that are most vulnerable to hunger
- Rural and urban populations, with a preference for rural and peri-urban informal
- Women, youth and differently abled people.
Based on our assessment, we designed a R120-million agricultural inputs voucher targeting smallholder farmers in the rural areas of South Africa.
Genesis spearheaded this intervention in close partnership with the Solidarity Fund, the FAO, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mezzanineware (the voucher provider) and LandNNES (an umbrella body for rural development focused NGOs). The inputs voucher is digital and will enable smallholder farmers to continue vegetable production for their own consumption, even at a time of disrupted food value chains in South Africa and as these farmers experience lower incomes.