SA consumers pay less for food
Candace Freeman
20 August 2004
South African consumers are currently paying less in retail prices per food basket than they were during the same period last year, as market prices seem to have stabilised.
The final report released by the Food Pricing Monitoring Committee today showed that increasing commodity prices, helped by world prices and the depreciating rand/dollar exchange rate, were largely responsible for increases in retail prices during 2002.
Speaking in Pretoria on Friday, committee chairperson Johann Kirsten said the prices for general shopping items had dropped by three percent in the last year, though external factors such as collusive behaviour by traders continuously threatened this trend.
"Sharp rises in commodity prices and the fact that they remained high for a number of months after the 2002 harvest created suspicion about trader behaviour on the agricultural futures market (SAFEX).
"This is a very difficult charge to prove, but this does
not mean that collusion had not happened," he said.
Kirsten recommended that the Department of Agriculture together with the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) should implement a reliable and consistent price monitoring network throughout the country.
"This will allow policy makers the opportunity to gain first hand qualitative and quantitative information on price trends.
"It will also enable the department to make informed decisions regarding food policy," he said.
The report also showed that 17 percent of people living in rural areas reported going hungry at least once a week, while six percent of those living in urban and semi-urban areas went hungry every day during 1998.
This situation worsened during 2002 and 2003 due to high food prices.
The director-general in the department Bongiwe Njobe said a targeted agricultural production programme was being designed to increase agricultural production at local level.
"This
programme will be linked with the social grant system to reinforce the attainment of food security at local and household levels," she said.
"Government is also looking at the feasibility of a food stamps programme to address other income poverty issues," she said.
The committee was first established in January last year to monitor the pricing of basic foodstuffs, investigate any sharp or unjustified price increases, determine the competitiveness of production operations, investigate price formation mechanisms within the value chain of basic foodstuffs and to recommend required productivity improvements.
Source: BuaNews
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