With the pandemic, the price of cereals, sugar, meat, fruits and vegetables is skyrocketing in developing countries. Poverty is rampant, and with it food insecurity.
In all developing countries, soaring food prices add to the health crisis. Millions of people suffer from hunger. Worsening social problems are poised to lead to new political and migratory disturbances.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food prices have climbed by nearly a third in the past year, as job losses linked to the pandemic have caused families to more difficult to obtain basic products. The price of maize has increased by 67% in one year, again according to the FAO, while sugar is up nearly 60% and oil costs twice as much. Prices increased for the eleventh consecutive month [en avril], reaching their highest level since 2014.
Logistics costs have increased
This phenomenon is linked to Covid-19, but not only. For the most part, experts believe, the global food supply has held up, after some initial disruptions last year. But trade restrictions due to the pandemic have translated into increased logistics costs. In many developing countries struggling to recover from the health crisis, the weakness of the currency has made imports more expensive. Conversely, in countries like Brazil, it stimulated exports of food products, which had become cheaper for foreign buyers, which reduced domestic supplies.
In addition, many people who have seen their incomes decline because of the pandemic have given up more expensive products such as meat or fresh vegetables to fall back on foods such as wheat, which fills the stomach but is less nutritious. , hence an increase in demand and prices. Arif Husain, chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), explains:
What’s special right now is that prices are going up and at the same time people’s incomes have been eroded. The combination of the two phenomena, rising prices and lack of purchasing power, is a time bomb.”
Sonia Regina Dominato, a mother of four in a favela handed over to gangs in Rio de Janeiro, had to quit her job as a cook during the pandemic to care for her ailing grandmother. And her husband, a laborer, has hardly found a job because of the decline in activity. For lack of money to buy beans or fruit, she watched with dismay as her children weakened, while the Covid-19 wreaked havoc across Brazil, causing more than 430,000 deaths. “I am very afraid that they will get sick”, she confides. Her youngest is 1 year old. “When I see that there is only milk left for a day, I can’t sleep. ”
The increases in food and fuel prices these
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Saeed ShahLuciana Magalhaes and Nicholas Bariyo
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