Owing to a number of external and internal factors, including intense rainfall and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guyana saw food prices rising by some 11.6% in 2021 according to Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh.
Singh made the revelation during the presentation of the 2022 budget in the National Assembly yesterday. This is the first time, since food prices began their steep rise, that the government is releasing the actual figures. The Bureau of Statistics had previously released figures but did not publish the numbers for the entire 2021.
“The immediate aftermath of the flood resulted in a sharp spike in prices, but as production returned to some normalcy, some amount of reversion was observed in the latter months of last year, leading to a 12-month inflation rate of 5.7% in December 2021. This reflected higher food prices, which rose by 11.6% and contributed 5 percentage points to the inflation rate,” he told the House.
The Minister said that while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ripple through the world and devastate the world’s economy, Guyana also had to deal with one of the most severe floods in recent history. The intense rainfall during the first half of 2021 is partly to be blamed for the rise in food prices and the subsequent inflation, Singh related.
He stated that the 607.7 millimetres of rainfall during the first half of 2021 was the second-highest level since 1981 and spared no part of Guyana. It resulted in unprecedented damage to the food production system of the country with over 130,000 acres of farmlands affected and approximately 1.3 million animals lost.
“Our Government mov-ed swiftly to deploy mobile pumps to remove the water from the land and heavy equipment to clear previously blocked channels and shore up structures that came under threat. We distributed 3,761 medical kits to reduce the risk of waterborne disease and 74,162 food hampers to provide relief to households in distress. In addition, we distributed over $7 billion in relief cash grants to households and the agriculture sector, in addition to thousands of bags of seed paddy to help rice farmers recover from the flood,” he said.
“Unavoidably, the temporary disruption to production of food items caused by the floods contributed to some price escalation in the domestic marketplace, but these started to revert as the year progressed and as production resumed. The immediacy of our interventions helped facilitate a quick recovery from the floods. Neverthe-less, the reality of our acute vulnerability to climate change and to extreme weather events is ever-present and will only be mitigated with very significant investments aimed at achieving greater climate resilience,” the Finance Minister added.
He added that the rise in food prices was further fueled by the effect of the pandemic on the supply chain. He said that freight rates increased by over 400% over the past two years with most of that increase occurring in 2021. As a result, inflationary pressures were amplified the world over, and global inflation is at its highest in at least a decade and, in some places, inflation is at its highest in over four decades, Singh said.
The Minister warned that the disruptions created by the pandemic are not expected to dissipate in the near term.
Easing the cost of living
During his budget speech, Singh said that the government recognizes the rise in prices but added that they have observed that it is more severe in some parts of the supply chain.
“The upward price movement at the marketplace is not reflected in similar price movement at the farm gate. Indeed, market prices have increased much more steeply than farm gate prices. This, of course, reflects a number of factors, including transportation cost and multiple layers of handling and reselling from farm to final retail.
“But in the interest of reducing inefficiencies in this process, we will be arranging monthly farmers markets at locations to be specified in East Berbice, East Coast Demerara, Georgetown, East Bank Demerara, and West Coast Demerara in the first instance, with the possibility of extending to other locations depending on the initial experience. Mr Speaker, this will help our farmers find ready markets for their produce, and help consumers benefit from the price advantage of buying directly from the farmer,” Singh announced.
Singh further told the House that government is committed to addressing the rising cost of living and reiterated that it is linked to the issues beyond Guyana’s shore.
“Given the complexity of the factors driving price increases and the limited policy instruments available to mitigate these increases, we intend to engage in further consultations with the communities most affected both on the coast and in the hinterland on possible interventions to help ease the impact on the most vulnerable in our society. To this end, we have allocated a sum of $5 billion to meet the cost of the interventions to be implemented following these consultations,” he revealed.
Earlier this month, Stabroek News reported that many Guyanese are still complaining about the high cost of living.
In a January 2022 report, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that the Food Price Index reached a 10-year high in 2021, despite a small December decline. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 133.7 points in December 2021, down 1.2 points (0.9%) from November, but still up 25.1 points (23.1 %) from December 2020.
“Except for dairy, the values of all sub-indices encompassed by the FFPI registered monthly declines, with international prices of vegetable oils and sugar falling significantly month-on-month. For 2021 as a whole, the FFPI averaged 125.7 points, as much as 27.6 points (28.1 %) above the previous year with all sub-indices averaging sharply higher than in the previous year,” the FAO said in the report.
Additionally, the World Bank’s report on the Global Economic Prospects said that global consumer price inflation is envisioned to peak in the first half of 2022 and then decline gradually through 2023. It noted that price pressures from shortages of key inputs and the recent run-up in commodity prices are expected to ease as global growth moderates and commodity supplies expand.
It noted that global inflation has risen at a faster pace than anticipated in recent months, resulting in steady upward revisions to consensus inflation forecasts while adding that further rises in commodity prices; continued strong demand for goods amid more persistent supply constraints; and, in some economies, sustained currency depreciation could compound inflationary pressures.
