Are staple foods becoming more expensive for urban consumers in eastern and southern Africa? Trends in food prices, marketing margins and wage rates in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia.

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter investigates patterns in staple food prices, wage rates, and marketing margins for urban consumers in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia between the mid-1990s and 2009, with a special focus on the 2007/2008 food crisis, and discusses the implications of the empirical findings for policy options to shield the urban poor from the potential adverse effects of future staple food price increases. The 4 staple food commodities for which prices are analysed in this chapter are maize, wheat, rice, and cassava. This chapter is organized as follows. After a brief introduction, the second section provides background information on urban staple food consumption patterns and sources of urban staple food supplies in the four case study countries. The third section details the methods and data used in the analysis. The fourth and fifth sections present the results. The sixth section outlines strategies that governments in eastern and southern Africa could use to keep staple food prices at moderate levels for urban consumers. The final section discusses the conclusions that emerge from the empirical findings.