Food crisis? What food crisis?
I must admit to not being one of the world’s greatest lovers of food shopping (as I constantly remind Violetta, my absolute maximum attention span in a supermarket is about thirty minutes), but nevertheless I can’t fail to notice the lack of interest in the food crisis in Sudan.
Egypt teetering on the brink of socio-economic colapse because of the high price of basic foodstuffs, or so we’re told. Riots in Kenya… well, there are always riots in Kenya. Gideon Rachman of the FT tells his reading public that pretty much every country he visits in the world is suffering because of price increases.
And what have I noticed here, over the past year? Well, a 33ml bottle of Coca-Cola has gone up by 10 piastras (2 and a half pence). But that probably says more about the avarice of Dal Group than it does about the imminent end of the human race. And coffee has gone down by 50 piastras (12 and a half pence), so it all balances out.
No, the prices in Khartoum do not seem to have increased dramatically over the past year, and I wonder why. My initial hypothesis, without having looked at the issue too closely, is that prices were so high anyway (because of high import taxes) that the government is able to soak up any immediate price increase. I wonder if that is what is happening. In which case, it is probably only a matter of time before Sudan joins the rest of the world in unaffordable basic food needs.
Tags: food, food crisis, food prices, food shortage, khartoum, sudan
May 20, 2008 at 8:50 am
I’m guessing sooner rather than later! Inflation (according to the official figures) has been rising steadily in 2008. It hit 20.6% at the end of March, up from an average of around 8% last year.