AS FARMERS shift to biofuels farming and the country continues to depend on imported maize, its staple food, the SA Food Bank has warned the number of people faced with in hunger could rise.

Food Bank chief executive officer Mohamed Kajee said the country lacked a food surplus and was unable to feed its population from its own resources as a result of a shift in food crops to bio-fuels farming.

Kajee said this yesterday during the launch of Limpopo Food Park, a food bank model aimed at distributing food among the indigent and boosting agribusiness.

The bank said about 11-million people out of a population of 50-million were food insecure.

"It means that these people who do not have access to three meals a day, which is a basic human right, will not have food. They may eat once a week, twice a week or not eat in a week," said Kajee.

"The food park in Limpopo is a good one because it combines food banking, which is giving and feeding poor people and developing small-scale farmers," he added.

Kajee also said the country needed to encourage people to go back to their farms and plough, so that even the indigent could produce food for themselves. He also warned that the food shortage problem could trigger price increases and permanent dependence on imported food.

"The sad thing is that traditional farming has been given up by many farmers because of incentives to produce biofuels, because they can earn more money, so they are producing less food," said Kajee.

Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation.

The Department of Agriculture has funded the Food Park to the tune of R4-million.