To Fight Food Prices, S. Africa Urges Return to Farming

With the global food crisis forcing South Africa's poor to struggle to make ends meet, officials have put forward a novel solution: Resume the subsistence agriculture that used to be part of the area's heritage.

A significant portion of South Africans and the majority of the country's poorest people live in rural areas, finance minister Trevor Manuel said.

"Higher prices are a signal to plant," he told National Geographic News. "This is true for poor people in rural areas as it is for large-scale commercial farmers."

Overall food prices have gone up 15.3 percent in South Africa over the past 12 months, with fats and oils increasing by a whopping 52.1 percent and heavily used staple grains by 22.9 percent.