Food prices under PF have sharply risen-Report

A research report has revealed that food prices for most essential items drastically increased between 2012 and 2014.

The Food Price Volatility research conducted by the Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition (CSO-SUN) in Kabwata, Lusaka and Chikwanda area in Mpika over the three years shows that the price for the staple mealie meal increased in real terms from K48.51 to K70.93, a 47% change.

The report says that a combination of factors including the removal of the miller consumer subsidy, unfavourable rainfall, high cost of agriculture inputs, especially fertilizer and high fuel prices contributed to the high food prices.

“These factors raised the cost of essential foods items, making it increasingly difficult for low-income and vulnerable households to afford their previous food baskets. In addition to the high food prices, the high cost of non-food items such as electricity, housing, education and transport costs, posed an additional strain on vulnerable households,” the report showed.

“Over the 3-year period, food dominated the household budget among most households, with some households spending as much as 60%. The staple food was taking up between 30% and 45% of expenditure on food for the low-income households. In the face of high food prices, the quality of life of some occupation groups especially those involved in informal employment and farming, begun to decline.”

The report released in Lusaka recently observed that the volatility of prices resulted in large income fluctuations.

“The precarious incomes prompted low income households to minimise the number and quantity of meals in a day, while some very vulnerable households skipped meals for a whole day and shifted to less-balanced and unsafe foods, causing short and possible long run harm to their health,” it said.

“Other coping strategies adopted involved piecework either for food or cash, sale of assets such as livestock, farm implements and charcoal and wood sales in the rural site, while those living in the urban site engaged in petty trade.”

It shows that the average household thus had to craft strategies to make ends meet and the attempts to personally mitigate the price effects at household level led to stress and further destitution.

“Informal social safety net mechanisms drawn from the extended family network, the church and friends, were present in the rural site compared to the urban site. However, these didn’t offer any long term protection”

It stated that policy measure to buffer the impact of the increased food prices particularly on the most vulnerable was almost non-existent.

“The increase in food prices has reversed the gains made against household hunger and poverty in the two sites of the FPV research. People who were perceived as food-secure at the time of the first round of research are now exposed to enormous risks of vulnerability due to unpredictable changes in food prices which affected their livelihood and income.”

“The coping mechanisms adopted by the majority of the households such as limiting food consumption, shifting to cheaper foods with lower nutritional value and skipping meals is manifesting into severe food insecurity, undernutrition and disease incidences which threatens to reinforce poverty. Not only has the lack of dietary diversification aggravated the food security situation, and threatened the nutrition status particularly of children, the drastic decisions being made by households have begun to erode traditional and local food habits,” it stated.

The report further noted that non-food expenditure obligations such as education and health are slowly being abandoned as the increase of food prices has forced poor families to allocate more income to food adding that the abandonment of these areas has further created a long-lasting poverty trap.

“As unpredictable changes of the food prices surpassed a certain critical stage and persisted at those levels, traditional policy prescriptions and coping mechanisms such as the FISP have begun to fail. Rather than focusing on input supply and moderating food prices through expert restrictions, focus should be on boosting agriculture productively and on promoting structural change in the food systems.”

The report said an appropriate food and nutrition security monitoring and evaluation system that provides timely data must be set up in order to respond effectively and efficiently to the vulnerabilities that arise from a drastic increase in food prices.

It said this will enable the government to equip themselves better before the full impacts of crises transpire.

“The current social protection measures being offered by government need to be revised or completely halted. Instead of engaging in isolated measures of responding to the food insecurity and high food prices, government should seek better coherence and coordination in their policy responses across various sectors. These must yield both greater assurances of unimpeded access to food supplies, and also help stabilise the food prices,” it stated.