SUMMARY The diet of a group of male African agricul-tural workers in South Africa contains an ex-cessive amount of maize and inadequate amounts of milk, animal tissues, fruit and vege- tables. It is deficient in a ndmber of essentialnutrients. A limited variety of dishes isserved, and food hygiene is poor.There is a high prevalence of skin and muco-sal lesions, of a type consistent with a predomi-nantly maize diet. The men tend to be lightand lean by comparison with urban Africansand various other groups.There is evidence of a deterioration in themen’s nutritional state after two months’ em-pboyment. There is also evidence of weightgain after enlistment, with subsequent weightloss.The morale of the men is low; this is ap-parently partly related to their unsatisfactorydiet. Limited evidence is found of an associa-tion between morale and nutritional state, and none of an association between productivity and nutritional state or morale. It is consid-ered, however, that dietary changes could use