Why worry ???...

.....The ANC "leaders" will eat good food and drink excellent drinks on behalf of their (more than stupid) voters..........

There are two glaring statements here.
1. “Land restitution had left some farms unproductive;” and
2. “Population growth and urbanisation necessitated increased food production.”

Now, Eddie von Ficksburg has been saying for years that, we have a food problem and we soon will not be able to feed the nation. So Eddie was right, in spite of all the jeers he invoked.
Others have been saying that we do not have an unemployment problem but an overpopulation problem. They are now shown to be right, too.
There is a third factor – a scarcity of water. My guess is that this land can support a population of 35 million comfortably – but 55 million, NO. The example set by Showerhead is just too appalling for words. By fathering 22 offspring (or who knows how many more?), only his stupidity is on display.

......Land restitution had left some farms unproductive......

The same as killing the goose that lay the golden eggs.

Productive farming is a science and there is absolutely no logic in the government's policy to force highly productive farmers to sell their land to the government so they can give it to inexperienced people.

Only one or two percent of these farmers are currently successful.

It is like taking a super performance Mercedes 500, remove the engine, and replace it with a 50cc motorcycle engine and expect the same performance.

While South Africa manages to produce enough food to feed its people, high prices are making lives difficult for many poorer people and population boom in SA and across the world add salt to the wound.
The biggest challenges facing farmers in terms of improving food production, without compromising on farming practices that had minimal long-term impact, included input costs, land reform, water quality, climate conditions and the high cost of agriculture investment. Maize and maize products are staples in households across the world, and as families grow, the demand for maize does the same, this goes further in the form of feed as maize is a significant animal feed. Given increasing populations, demand will increase. If supply stays constant, prices will increase. Since a number of local commodity prices are derived from international prices, it will result in increases in local prices as well.
The consumption of the four staples that supply most human calories which include maize, wheat, rice, corn and soybeans had outstripped production for much of the past decade, drawing once, and large stockpiles down to worrisome levels.
The problem is not only in South Africa as global imbalance between supply and demand has resulted in two huge spikes in international grain prices, with some grains more than doubling in cost for instance our most stable grain which is maize had been expensive lately.
We need to calculate against risks which include poor soil management, over fertilising and overall poor farm management and change in climatic conditions. These are some of the unsustainable farming practices responsible for decreased crop yields and increased prices for basic foods. Small scale farming can come in handy for temporary relief but we need Agricultural resurrection of the land which was ''expropriated''/land restitution by the new government into the ''hands'' that does not know what to do with the land, a factor which is hampering particularly maize and wheat production in our country.
What is clear from the incidents, which are spread all over the world, is that the world is facing a crisis which has been worsened by many varying factors, compounded by worsening environmental conditions. A human factor that affects farming is change, which is necessary if one needs to make a paradigm shift. Many farmers are reluctant to change farming methods and the way they do farming business and labour relations in farming.

....the food crisis can be global, but the ANC is definitely a local crisis.............

When Alec Earwig decided to close the Boards and put us on import parity pricing, everyone told him it would be a disaster. Would he listen? Would he hell!

Nobody is in favour of the draconian methods that were implemented by the Boards but instead of making them easier to work with, they were simply thrown out. The biggest problem is that they were thrown out with absolutely nothing to take their places.

We have 'lost' about a third of our farms and about doubled our population. That was never going to be a story with a good ending.

The more vegetarians we have to more land becomes available to cultivate crops.