SPIKING food prices have dealt a major blow to many consumers at a time when many have lost their jobs, while others have seen a fall in income owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. Rising food prices are still pushing up the living costs, making it increasingly difficult for people to manage three meals a day.
According to the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), soaring prices of vegetables, rice, oil, spices and eggs impacted people the most between May and September. According to CAB’s market monitoring data, prices of those items spiked on a regular basis. Consumer spending on vegetables rose by 5.39% in the five months, says CAB. According to the Association, prices of vegetables topped the list of price increases.
Last week, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said that food inflation has jumped by 0.42 percentage points, standing at 6.50% in September, compared to 6.08% in August. The rising food prices pushed overall inflation in September to 5.97%, which was 0.29 percentage points higher than August levels.
According to CAB, says rice prices showed the maximum increase after vegetables. Although the prices remained stable during the Boro season in May, consumer spending on rice rose by 6% in June. Prices of this food staple fell slightly in July as low-income groups received relief materials including rice. However, rates went up again in August and September. After the virus outbreak in the country, though ginger prices registered the first hike among spices, onion prices have contributed the most to the rising living costs. Prices of the bulb have spiked since India banned onion exports.
So we know the culprits — which are perennial — onions, rice, and flooding. By now the government should have set up a program to ensure that all essential foods have stockpiles, as well as set up alternate distribution channels in cases of flooding and supply chain stocks. But they have been unable to do so.
Simple matters like setting up cold storages and silos for rice along with proper roads which don’t go under water whenever we have flooding can work wonders. It would also help if tall methods of inter country distribution — like railways and the waterways be adequately developed to ensure that we are never short of distribution channels. Another way could be to routinely carry out inspections to punish importers who defy all odds to increase prices — but this has never been done in any scale large enough to affect them. For some mysterious reason they remain unpunished.
