Overview:
Food inflation for each country was based on the latest month from August to November 2022.
The latest World Bank report has listed Uganda and Rwanda among 20 countries with the highest food inflation worldwide.
According to the World Bank Food Security Update released on December 15, food price inflation in the listed countries exceeded overall inflation (measured as year-on-year change in the overall Consumer Price Index – CPI) in 90 percent of the 161 countries for which food CPI and overall CPI indexes are both available.
Food inflation for each country was based on the latest month from August to November 2022. Real food inflation is defined as food inflation minus overall inflation while nominal food inflation is means the statistic is measured in terms of actual prices that exist at the time.
In real food inflation terms, Rwanda has 31% while Uganda has 17% on a list that also features Zimbabwe (52%), Lebanon (45%), Iran (32%), Hungary (21%), Colombia (15%) and Montenegro (13) and Lithuania (13%).
For nominal food inflation, top on the list in Zimbabwe with 321% followed by Lebanon with 203%, Venezeula 158% and Turkey 102%. Others are Argentina (92%), Iran (84%), Sri Lanka (74%), Rwanda (65%), Suriname (51%) and Hungary (44%).
Reacting to the report, Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze said: “Evidence that prioritizing food and animal feed security is one of the strategic fiscal measures to manage the economy.”
Following growing widespread hunger and low crop harvest caused by climate change, Cabinet adopted a paper by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries to boost food security in the country.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries then directed NAGRC&DB to embark on large-scale commercial farming.
According to Dr Peter Beine, the executive director of NAGRC&DB, they have so far planted about 12 square miles of corn and soybean across their nine ranches spread across the country. Of these, 5,646 acres are of maize grain, 1,329 acres are of maize silage, while 600 acres are of soybean.
According to the 2022 Global Hunger Index, overlapping crises have exposed the weakness of food systems and that global progress against hunger has largely stagnated in recent years. According to the report, the impacts of ongoing regional conflicts, climate change, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, and high and volatile food, fertilizer, and fuel prices have drastically weakened the world’s already inadequate, unsustainable food systems.
According to a World Bank report, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major setback in global poverty reduction. Now, rising food and energy prices fueled by climate shocks and conflict have halted the recovery.