eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
The number of people experiencing insufficient food consumption in the country had decreased by 11,7 percent by the last week of May 2021, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
Through its Food Security and Markets Monitoring Report, WFP said the estimated number of people experiencing insufficient food consumption in the country had decreased from 5,1 million during the last week of April to 4,5 million by the last week of May 2021.
This is a 25 percent decrease from the peak season when about 6 million were estimated to have poor or borderline food consumption.
The decrease, is attributed to increased food supplies following a bumper harvest.
“The food and nutrition security in the country has improved significantly in tandem with the harvest period and increased household access to food mainly cereals, pulses, vegetables and tubers
from own production,” reads part of the Report.
The country expects to produce nearly 3,1 million tonnes of cereal grains, including maize, sorghum, pearl and finger millet, according to the “Second Round Crop and Livestock Assessment Report 2020-21 Season” released by the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement early this year.
Improved food supplies is reflected in lower prices in the market.
According to the WFP’s report, prices of most food basket commodities decreased in local currency terms.
“Maize grain and maize meal prices decreased by 27 percent in rural and by 25 percent in urban markets.
“The price of sugar beans decreased by 4 percent in rural and by 2 percent in urban markets, while the price of vegetable oil increased by 4 percent in rural markets and remained the same in the urban markets,” reads part of the report.
In USD terms, price of maize grain decreased by an average of 19 percent, unrefined maize meal decreased by 4 percent while prices for sugar beans and vegetable oil remained stable compared to April.
“However, the introduction of the SI 127 has resulted in price increases for foreign currency. The full impact of SI 127 on the market is yet to be understood,” the WFP said.
The Government introduced SI 127
of 2021 to control the abuse of the foreign currency exchange system in order to
stabilise the exchange rate, promote use of the banking system as well as safeguard it from being abused for illicit activities.
The good harvest, which is usually followed by people depending on own produce has, however, had a negative impact on supplies in formal markets.
According to the WFP supply of maize grain remained critically low, reported to be available in 8 percent of the monitored markets while unrefined maize meal was available in 74 percent of monitored markets.
Availability of sugar beans increased from 60 percent in April to 75 percent in May, while that of vegetable oil remained the same at 90 percent.
According to the WFP, the downward trend in the number of people experiencing insufficient food consumption is likely to continue during the post harvest period between June to September and possibly begin to increase again thereafter, peaking during the lean period from October to March 2022.
