International Study Finds Depression linked to Food Insecurity in SA

An international study funded by the United Kingdom’s (UK) Wellcome Trust’s Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) project, has found a high incidence of depression amongst people living in food insecure environments in South Africa (SA). The collaborative study which included scientists from the United States, the UK and SA was recently published in the prestigious journal, Nature Scientific Reports. It was the first study of its kind to link long term depression with the public health challenge of food insecurity.

Food security is defined as having enough food at all times for an active and healthy life. In order to measure the incidence of depression in food insecure areas, data from the South African National Income Dynamics Study (SA-NIDS) wave 1 (year 2008), wave 2 (2010), wave 3 (2012), and wave 4 (2015) were analysed.

The study constructed an incident cohort to ensure that the observed study participants were free of depression initially; and then tracked the risk of depression onset over time between individuals exposed and unexposed to food insecurity. According to lead author, Dr Mitsuaki Tomita from UKZN, ‘The incident cohort consisted of 8801 participants who were depression free at baseline.’

‘Our study identified three major hotspots of food insecurity in the country. These included two clusters in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), and one overlapping both KZN and the Eastern Cape (EC). An alarming finding was that a number of individual households in these hotspots experienced food insecurity with a significantly greater likelihood of depression,’ said Tomita.

Whilst a biomedical approach has often been used to treat depression using psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic treatments, based on the evidence of the study, the scientists have called for the need to address the underlying social causes (e.g. poverty and hunger) in the community.

Further the study also found that a high rate of food insecurity existed in hotspots which were regarded as having the highest food producing potential. This is defined as the “Food Insecurity Paradox” which is evident in provinces such as KZN and the EC with fertile soils that are suitable for commercial and small-scale/subsistence farming, are the best-watered provinces, and home to many large agri-business firms.

Professor Albert Modi, UKZN’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science is a leading authority in crop science as well as field crop management. As co-author of this study, Modi stressed the importance of developing rural areas to ensure sustainable subsistence farming which not only provides a secure income, but also nutrient enriched crops. He said, ‘The majority (if not all) people who are affected by poverty and food insecurity in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal reside in the former “homelands” – Transkei and Zululand. While colonialism is known for land dispossession, it also allowed people to continue with their indigenous culture of self-sufficiency derived from land cultivation of traditional staples and animal husbandry, which included utilization of indigenous vegetables that are richer in essential micronutrients and vitamins than any modern conventional vegetables. Traditional staple crops have varieties that can be produced organically and require low levels of rainfall – maize, beans, amadumbe, sweet potatoes, sorghum, etc. We need to help this population by enabling commercialization, ensuring self-sufficiency and a stable income. Thus, creating food security in these ‘hotspots’ is possible.

SHEFS is a global research programme funded by the Wellcome Trust (running from 2017 to 2022) with three country case study sites: the United Kingdom, South Africa and India. The focus for SHEFS is on bridging the gap between science and practice to understand and solve current social and environmental problems.

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