7 billion neighbors

In Africa and in the middle of Ramadan: how are households coping with rising food prices?

Audio 48:30

In a shop in the Saint-Maur des Fossés market in Ziguinchor, Senegal, where prices increased in April 2022 © Raphaelle Constant

By: Emmanuelle Bastide

2 mins

In 2021, global food prices rose by an average of 28%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Their highest level for 10 years.

Advertisement

After the rise in oil prices, disruptions linked to the health crisis and bad weather conditions, the war in Ukraine has accentuated the general overheating.

Faced with soaring wheat prices, Cameroon, for example, had to increase the price of a bag of flour by 5,000 CFA francs (€7.6).

And wheat is not the only raw material to see its price soar.

Corn, sugar, oil, agricultural fertilizers, increase in its wake.

While African households can spend up to two thirds of their income on food and most countries are dependent on imports, the continent is particularly vulnerable.

As Ramadan began on April 2, 2022, what daily consequences for the household basket?

What possible measures to limit the rise in prices?  

With :

Pierre Janin

, geographer, director of research at the Institute of Research for Development at 

, specialist in food issues, working mainly on the management of food crises in Africa.

Franck Galtier

, researcher in political economy at

, specialist in markets and food crises.

Ollo Sib ,

Advisor

for Central and West Africa.

The report of

in Ziguinchor in Senegal.

Our reporter went to the central market to meet customers who had come to buy their food supplies.

Same observation for all women: “Life is expensive, it is more difficult because all products have increased”.

For one of the market shopkeepers, Marouane Diallo, the post-Covid economy had already weakened households and today he is forced to align himself with the prices of the wholesalers who sell him the goods.

However, in Senegal, at the end of February, President Macky Sall decided to lower the prices of basic necessities such as oil, rice and sugar. 

Report on the market of Saint-Maur des Fossés in Zigunchor in Senegal by Raphaelle Constant

Musical programming:

► 

- Samba Puzzi 

► 

- Sahad  

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Economy

• Economy Africa

• ECOWAS

On the same subject

DRC: price stability at the pump costs the government a lot

Gabon: the government takes measures to avoid a surge in prices

Madagascar: against soaring food prices, the government sets price ceilings