IMF says Africa food prices soaring amid high import reliance

Due to economic downturn in some African countries, the prices of staple food in the sub-Saharan Africa have surged by an average of 23.9 per cent in 2020-22, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in a report.

According to a report by Cedric Okou, John Spray, and D. Filiz Unsal, the surge in prices is the most since the 2008 global financial crisis, even as it stated that that is commensurate to an 8.5 percent rise in the cost of a typical food consumption basket (beyond generalised price increases).

According to the report, “Global factors are partly to blame because the region imports most of its top staple foods-wheat, palm oil, and rice-which local food prices is significant, nearly one-to-one in some countries.

“Prices of locally sourced staple food have also spiked in some countries on the back of domestic supply disruptions, local currency depreciations, and higher fertilizer and input costs. In Nigeria for example, the prices of both cassava and maize have more than doubled even though they’re mainly produced locally. In Ghana, prices for cassava escalated by 78 percent in 2020-21, reflecting higher production costs and transport constraints among other factors,” it stated.

Going by price data from 15 countries on the five most consumed staple foods in the region (cassava, maize, palm oil, rice, and wheat), the report find that in addition to global food prices, net import dependence, the share of staples in food consumption, and real effective exchange rates drive changes in local staple food prices.

It stated: “Of these, the consumption share of each staple has the largest price effect. This is due in part to income. Better-off households can afford a wider range of foods, but for the poor, there are very few substitutes for staples, which make up nearly two-thirds of their daily diet.

“We estimate that a 1 percent increase in the consumption share of a staple food raises the local price by an average 0.7 percent; the effect is even bigger when a staple is mostly imported, raising the price by about 1.2 percent. When a country’s net import dependence increases by 1 percent, the local real cost of a highly imported staple is expected to increase by an additional 0.2 percent.”

Accordingly, the report said: “We find that 1 percent depreciation in real effective exchange rates increases the price of highly imported staples by an average 0.3 percent.

“Staple food prices in the region are also impacted by natural disasters and wars, rising by an average 4 percent in the wake of wars and 1.8 percent after natural disasters, depending on the magnitude, frequency, duration, and location of events.

“We looked more closely at the variation in prices between countries and determined that those with stronger monetary policy frameworks are better at curbing direct and second-round food price inflationary pressures, and in turn, controlling overall inflation. In contrast, food prices tend to be higher in countries with weaker fiscal management and elevated public debt.”

The report concludes that “these results suggest that a mix of fiscal, monetary, and structural reforms could help lower food inflation. For example, improving public financial management could help free up resources for investment in well-targeted social assistance programmes. This could help stabilise prices.

“Policymakers could also help make agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers, cheaper by introducing structural and regulatory reforms that promote fair competition, as well as by streamlining trade procedures and better leveraging research and development to boost agricultural innovation.”