November 2016
VICTOR MUNNIK, Society, Work and Development (SWOP) Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
Over the past three years, I have been doing research into the impact of coal mining on the Mpumalanga Highveld. In this article I focus on its impact on food security.
Coal mining and farming make uncomfortable neighbours for a whole list of reasons. The most important conflict may turn out to be the reality of climate change, of which burning coal is a major cause.
Worldwide, the past 15 months have been the hottest ever since weather was recorded, so the extraordinary weather changes of global warming are with us already. Secondly, we are locked in for a temperature rise of at least 2°C globally, with even more in South Africa. Experts warn that this is an unliveable scenario, leading to floods, droughts, migration of climate refugees and collapse of economic and political systems.
The second is the contamination of water by coal mining. Mines use just under 5% of the water of the upper Olifants catchment area, but they are responsible for nearly 80% of the sulphate load in its water. The sulphate is an indicator of – and the active agent in – Acid Mine Drainage (AMD).
With its acidic waters, mobilisation of heavy metals and its tendency to create salinity, AMD has widespread impacts on agriculture. The scale of the AMD crisis in the coalfields is of the same proportions as that of the crisis in the Gold Belt.
The third is the destruction of the soil by coal mines. Open pit mining blasts away the sandstone and plinthite (clay) layer that perches the water table in the Mpumalanga Highveld, which in turn is the key to the fertility of the grassland soils. There is no way that this layer can be restored after mining.
Even if a clay or concrete layer is built – at greater expense than the profits of the mine – it won’t survive the years of settling in of the ‘overburden’ that fills the pits.
Miners treat soil as a dead material that can be left in heaps until needed for rehabilitation, which to them is a form of engineering and cosmetic landscaping. But soil is a living ecosystem. It is the basis of food security for people and the food web for life on the planet in general.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) described soil as ‘one of nature’s most complex ecosystems and one of the most diverse habitats on earth: It contains a myriad of different organisms, which interact and contribute to the global cycles that make all life possible.’
Soil contains a quarter of biodiversity on earth.
That it is possible, after coal mining, to rehabilitate soil to its original condition is a dangerous myth that legitimates the destruction of soils as ecosystems. Soil takes thousands of years to form and, even if all procedures described in the Chamber of Mines (CoM) Guidelines for Rehabilitation are meticulously followed, a loss of soil potential of at least 30% is inevitable.
If these procedures are not followed and most often they are not, losses in soil potential of between 70% and 90% are likely.
A 2001 synthesis of research into agricultural potential after rehabilitation for the pro-mining Coaltech initiative, found that:
- Vegetation of rehabilitated pasture areas will ‘probably never return to their original state, and continued fertilisation may be needed’.
- When rehabilitated soils were tested for the production of maize and sunflower, crop yields were ‘low or very low due to either induced low soil water-holding capacity or poor drainage’, made worse by machine-induced compaction. Spoil material (lower layers mixed in with topsoil) hindered the maize roots from penetrating the soil. Maize planted on this soil showed high water stress.
These conflicts between coal mining and agriculture – particularly maize – have very important implications for food security in South Africa. Food insecurity is already a huge and chronic problem in South Africa.
Undermining the ability to produce food, and particularly maize, puts an already strained system under stress. According to Oxfam, an international food security organisation, one in four – or 13 million – people in South Africa go hungry every day and half of all people in South Africa live on the edge of food insecurity.
Two in every three people in informal areas (urban and rural) are either food insecure or at immediate risk.
People depend on bought food, since self-grown food is very limited. Being secure from hunger is determined by two things: How much cash people have available to spend on food and what the food prices are. Poor households spend more than half their income on food.
One of the reasons for high food prices is that a few large corporations control most of the South African food market, and they have been found guilty of fixing prices of bread, milk and canned fish between them.
The maize chain is particularly concentrated. According to the African Centre for Biodiversity ‘Two companies (Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred) control the domestic seed market, maize handling and storage is dominated by three companies (Senwes, NWK and Afgri – all former co-ops), Louis Dreyfus and Cargill – two international grain traders – handle the majority of international trades.
The white maize milling sector is dominated by three firms: Tiger Brands, Premier Foods and Pioneer Foods. This highly concentrated value chain feeds into an equally concentrated food retail sector, with four major retailers, namely Shoprite/Checkers, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths dominating the market.
Tiger Brands, Pioneer Foods and Premier Foods mill approximately 60% of the nation’s white maize crop. Their brands, which include Ace, White Star and Iwisa super maize meal – all genetically modified – constitute over 73% of the maize meal market.
So, national food security does not automatically translate to food security for households. However, increases in maize prices do translate into more pressure on food security for poor households. For the past ten years, the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action (PACSA) has tracked the cost of a basic food basket for low income families in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.
In August 2016, for a family of seven, a nutritionally complete food basket would cost R4 325,24 per month. But few people can afford this, and therefore in reality, most people can only afford a nutritionally incomplete ‘PACSA Food Basket’ which cost R1 942,42 in August 2016.
It means that low-income households are underspending on nutritious, albeit still very basic food, by 55% – with serious implications for their health and wellbeing. This food basket had increased with R318,67 (19,6%) from R1 623,75 in August 2015 to R1 942,42 in August 2016.
PACSA stresses that ‘Maize meal is a core driver of food inflation in the PACSA food basket, contributing around 12%. Along with the overall increase in cost of the PACSA Food Basket, maize meal (25 kg) is also at its highest levels year-on-year, with a 25 kg bag costing R233,82 – this is 39,6% (R66,35) more than it was a year ago (R167,46)’.
The price of maize meal is important because low-income households secure the starches (the bulk foods) before nutritionally rich foods such as protein, calcium and vegetables. Any significant increase in maize meal means less money is available to buy foods essential for dietary diversity and therefore negatively impacts on the health status of families. But such an increase in the price of maize is exactly what agricultural researchers are expecting.
The Mpumalanga Highveld is one of South Africa’s most important maize producing areas, so the scale of the threat to agriculture from mining is a crucial food security question. According to the Centre for Environmental Rights’ Zero Hour report, ‘By 2014, 61,3% of the surface area of Mpumalanga fell under prospecting and mining right applications’ and ‘if mining continues at its current rate, around 12% of the country’s total high potential arable land will be transformed’.
In its pilot research project in the fertile Delmas, Ogies and Leandra districts in 2012, the Bureau for Food and Agriculture (BFAP) calculated that in their pilot area, current coal mining activities lead to a loss of 284 844 tons of maize per year, with a further 162 736 tons from areas being prospected for coal mining.
BFAP calculated that the removal of this volume of maize could lead to a 14% rise in maize prices. ‘The impact on households would be devastating,’ says PACSA food security researcher Ms Julie Smith. If the potential loss of maize growing land is extended to the whole of Mpumalanga, it is possible that around 240 000 ha of high potential land will be lost to maize farming in Mpumalanga, implying a loss of 1,2 million tons of maize to the South African market. This is enough to permanently change South Africa into a maize importing country.
‘The maize grown on Mpumalanga’s high potential agricultural soils protects the country’s food security in years of drought. In a wet year, Mpumalanga produces around 22% of the harvest. In dry years, its contribution rises to 54% because it is more resilient in the face of drought. Therefore, Mpumalanga’s maize production plays a stabilising role in South Africa’s maize price,’ explains Belfast veterinary Mr Koos Pretorius.
And because of climate change, drought years in the central and western parts of the country where most maize is produced, are set to increase. Pretorius explains that three factors determine the price of maize: The global maize price set at the Chicago Board of Trade, the local supply (the harvest), and the exchange rate.
When South Africa produces a surplus harvest, the South African price of maize is the Chicago price minus the cost (transport) of exporting the maize into the world market. It therefore remains cheaper than the international price.
However, if there is a shortfall in the production of South African maize – as there is in 2016 because of the drought – the price is the Chicago price plus the cost of importing. When the rand weakens, the cost of imports goes up further.
In 2012, this difference was huge – around R1 100/ton between the export parity price of ±R2 200/ton and the import parity price of ±R3 200/ton to R3 400/ton. ‘Farm gate’ prices are responsible for about half the increase in the price of the most popular ‘super maize meal’.
The other costs include transport, storage, milling and the volume lost by refining the raw maize. A steadily weakening currency steadily inflates to the import parity price. This year’s drought has led to predictions of a food crisis with ‘dire consequences for the poor’, agricultural economist Mr Nick Vink warned in January 2016. He predicted a total maize crop of 4 700 000 tons, ‘less than half of the industry’s average of some 11 500 000 tons per year for 2011 to 2015 and of the average consumption of 9 600 000 tons per year over the same period’, with limited carry-over stocks from the previous year.
Publication: November 2016
Section: Focus on
