The trajectory of food security policies in South Africa, 1910-1994. The persistence of food subsidies

Abstract

Related processes of capitalist development, apartheid, and political contention determined South Africa’s public food politics and policies during the 20th cen- tury. This paper provides a chronological and comparative analysis of the emer- gence and transformation of food-related policies from South Africa’s foundation as a semi-independent settler state to the democratic revolution. We centrally argue that while apartheid ideology, capital interest and liberal and democratic opposition often conflicted, interests also converged in some regards. To explain policies that both confirmed and contradicted a seemingly unambiguous racist ideology, we employ a process-sociological figurational approach that reveals the interweaving of political, economic and symbolic developments. Based on primary sources from the archives and secondary literature, we compare two food security policies: school meals and food subsidies. We show that a highly symbolic conflict about school meals ended with excluding African students, part of a welfare state trajectory that gradually abandoned non-whites. However, a much costlier, non-discriminatory redistributive food subsidy system did mean- while strive and expand. The apartheid regime reclined responsibility for African children’s welfare. Simultaneously, a vast food subsidy system included the non- white population as consumers and labour force.