Food prices in South Africa are barely rising, but that does not make a healthy diet affordable, and it does not guarantee that farmers are earning enough, according to the latest brief from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), compiled with Absa Agribusiness and released on 30 September, Farmers Weekly South Africa reports.
Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation was 1.1% year on year in August, up from 0.9% in July, against headline consumer inflation of 4.4%. Fish and seafood rose fastest at 7.5%, followed by non-alcoholic beverages at 4.9%, oils and fats 2.6%, dairy and eggs 2.1%, sugar 2% and meat 1.5%. Vegetables were 0.6% cheaper than a year earlier, grain products 1.9% and fruit and nuts 5.5%. Because meat carries a much larger weight in the household basket, its smaller rise added about 0.4 percentage points to food inflation, double the contribution of fish.
BFAP's basic healthy food basket of 26 items for two adults and two children cost R3,935 in August, about R30 less than in July. An adequate energy basket that supplies enough calories without dietary variety cost R1,155, so the healthy basket is roughly 3.4 times dearer. For a household living on two full-time minimum wages and two child support grants, the healthy basket takes about 30% of modelled income; with one minimum wage, about 55%.
Slow inflation also does not undo earlier rises. Food and beverage inflation reached 14% in March 2023, and food-only inflation averaged 10.8% in the 2016 drought. Cheaper maize meal and rice help budgets, but higher prices for canned pilchards, cooking oil and some vegetables can still narrow what families eat.
At the farm gate the picture is different. Maize prices rose for a second month in August, though still below a year earlier, supported by higher export parity and cushioned by a stronger rand, good yields and large stocks. Tomato prices are under pressure from high stocks and onion prices have swung widely. Abundant supply and lower commodity prices can squeeze growers' returns, and the brief stresses that the gap between farm and retail prices is not all profit once processing, transport, packaging, refrigeration, losses and retail costs are counted.
BFAP expects food commodity prices to stay moderate in the coming months, while flagging upside risks. Keeping food affordable, the brief argues, depends on both household purchasing power and farms that remain viable.
Photo: Husskeyy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly South Africa
Comments
(0)