Despite all the favourable indicators, strong government commitment and South Africa’s
national food secure status, a large proportion of all households, especially in the rural regions,
are still regarded as food insecure. Consequently, rural agricultural development, focusing on
cash crops such as sunflower and maize, has been prioritised by government as a way to address
food security. However, this did not yield the desired outcomes. On the contrary, the success of
indigenous and traditional food crops in the rest of Africa made it an attractive alternative to
consider. Hence a great potential exists for increasing the use of indigenous and traditional food
crops in the fight against food insecurity. Therefore the aim of the paper is to determine which
indigenous and traditional food is likely to make the biggest contribution towards food security.