Food import dependency
34.7%Food-calorie-weighted import dependency profile, bounded for scoring. Not a traced share of imported calories eaten.
South Africa
Follow the food-system dependencies and response capacity behind the score. Explore 2014–2023, one year at a time.
Headline snapshot: all seven indicators weighted equally, averaged across 20 filled-in datasets.
Composite score in 20230.2300–1 · higher is more vulnerable
World rank#151Of 178 countries · rank 1 is most vulnerable
Food-basket import dependency34.7%Calorie-weighted dependency profile
A decade in context
South Africa
Higher means more vulnerable. All countries share the same 0–1 scale. Shading shows the range across 20 imputations, not a confidence interval.
View exact chart values
| Year | South Africa |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 0.2260.226–0.226 |
| 2015 | 0.2230.223–0.223 |
| 2016 | 0.2570.257–0.257 |
| 2017 | 0.2360.236–0.236 |
| 2018 | 0.2420.242–0.242 |
| 2019 | 0.2500.250–0.250 |
| 2020 | 0.2260.226–0.226 |
| 2021 | 0.2320.232–0.232 |
| 2022 | 0.2340.234–0.234 |
| 2023 | 0.2300.230–0.230 |
The seven indicators in 2023
Bars use direction-adjusted normalized values: longer always means more vulnerable. Values beside titles retain published units; raw and normalized fields may reflect different imputation stages.
Feed import dependency
12.3%Import dependency of the feed basket, weighted by reported feed tonnes.
Food import burden
5.0%Food imports as a percentage of merchandise exports. Source observations are three-year averages; 100% is the scoring saturation threshold.
Supplier concentration
1,974Concentration of import suppliers, aggregated across commodity groups. 10,000 means a single supplier within a group.
Production concentration
1,260Concentration of domestic production by tonnes. Heavy products can dominate this provisional measure.
Climate exposure
0.672Normalized cereal-yield and population projections. This projection-based component is largely constant over the study window, not annual weather.
Adaptive capacity
0.360ND-GAIN readiness. Higher is better: stronger capacity to respond to a shock. Darker shading indicates lower readiness.
Behind the import-dependency figure
The score uses bounded dependency values. These additional measures retain the underlying trade picture.
- Gross dependency, uncapped
- 36.1% Can exceed 100% for processing or re-export hubs.
- Net import dependency
- 9.4% Imports minus exports, relative to domestic supply; negative for net exporters.
- Self-sufficiency ratio
- 90.6% Basket-weighted domestic production relative to supply.
- Calorie coverage
- 99.9% Share of basket calories with usable dependency ratios; standalone IDR ranking requires at least 80%.