Retail prices of food items rose faster than wholesale price — Study
THE retail/consumer prices of several important food items rose substantially faster than wholesale market prices between January 2022 and July 2023.
Advertisement
For instance, the retail price of onions increased by 42.4 per cent, while the wholesale price rose by just 18.1 per cent in the same period.
The retail price of gari grew by 77 per cent, compared to a 63 per cent rise in wholesale prices; and an increase of just 46.4 per cent in the wholesale price of cassava, gari’s basic ingredient.
The retail price of sorghum increased by 117.9 per cent, while the wholesale price increased by 100.6 per cent.
According to the Fair Food Price Monitor, a tool developed by consumer organisations, this shows that while costs are increasing for all market actors, consumers are bearing an unfair and excessive burden.
The Fair Food Price Monitor explores several potential explanations for this divergence in retail and wholesale prices – such as rising fuel costs and a weakening exchange rate – but finds that while these factors may have contributed, they do not appear to be sufficient explanations for the excessive rise in retail prices.
After hitting an all-time high in March 2022, food prices in global commodity markets have been declining steadily ever since.
Yet in that same period, consumer food prices in Ghana have been rising rapidly, with monthly inflation hitting a 22-year high of 61 per cent in January 2023.
Other Trending Stories
There are clear signs that insufficient competition in the over-concentrated global and national food systems is enabling some market actors to make excessive profits at the expense of overcharged consumers and underpaid farmers.
According to the Monitor, there are various reasons why food prices at the consumer level are still rising in nearly every country across the world.
It said factors such as fuel costs, currency exchange rates, climatic conditions, seasonal variability, infrastructural challenges and government policies such as subsidies, price controls and trade tariffs all affect food pricing.
Yet there are also clear signs that high levels of market concentration, due to a lack of competition in our global and national food systems, are allowing a small number of dominant actors to profit excessively, resulting in unfair food prices for consumers and farmers alike.
The Monitor said Ghana urgently needed a strong competition law and a dedicated enforcement authority to tackle the threat of unfair food prices to protect consumers.
Context
As of November 1, 2023, the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme reported that 5.5 million Ghanaians, 18.4 per cent of the population, had insufficient access to food.
Rising food prices are a significant driver of food and nutrition insecurity. According to Ghana Statistical Services, monthly food price inflation hit a 22-year high of 61 per cent in January 2023 and exceeded 50 per cent every month of the year 2023.
Yet, since a significant spike at the start of 2022, global food commodity prices have been in steady decline, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Global Food Price Index.
