Abstract
Food price inflation was one of the major crises mooted in recent past. Marginalized poor people were hammered largely in developing countries including Sri Lanka. The awareness and preparedness for food crisis can reduce the impact as well as the social conflicts up to a certain extent. Hence, this study was designed to find out the awareness and impact of food price inflation among poor householders in rural Sri Lanka. A survey questionnaire was employed over 100 Samurdhi beneficiaries from Gampaha and Matara Districts. Data were analyzed using SPSS package. The results showed a positive relation-ship between education and level of awareness on food crisis (r = 0.325, P= 0.001). The majority of the sample was (77%) aware about the world food crisis and 88% of them has experienced it due to high prices of food commodities. The reasons they have put forwarded were climate change and lack of land for agriculture. There was a significant impact on spending on foods (p = 0.000) where the food ex-penses have increased after 2008 drastically. People have tried out to substitute wheat flour based prod-ucts with rice based products showing a significant association between wheat and rice consumption (χ2= 13.05, P=0.000). The rural poor in Sri Lanka were aware about world food crisis with some valid justifications. Hence, they tend to go for substitutes in order to smooth the negative impact of high food prices. Hence, the government can formulate policies toward import substitutes especially on food items as the perception of rural poor is favourable to lessen the threat of food crisis in future. Tropical Agricultural Research and Extension 15(1): 2012: page 19-23 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/tare.v15i2.5245
Highlights
Escalating food prices lead to numerous problems in the economy
In 2008, the rice price inflation in Sri Lanka was only second to Bangladesh from the region even though the price level was fairly lower than the global rice price (Regional food prices, World bank)
These are certain signs of a food crisis that can be experienced in Sri Lankan economy creating the worst food price inflation (Bandara and Selvanathan, 2008) as well as the highest food price inflation rate (FAO 2009) in South Asia
Summary
Escalating food prices lead to numerous problems in the economy. It is a threat for the economic stability within the country so as in the world (World Bank 2011). Food price rises lead macro level vulnerability especially for low income countries with a high share of food imports and limited monetary earning (World Bank 2011). In 2008, the rice price inflation in Sri Lanka was only second to Bangladesh from the region even though the price level was fairly lower than the global rice price (Regional food prices, World bank). These are certain signs of a food crisis that can be experienced in Sri Lankan economy creating the worst food price inflation (Bandara and Selvanathan, 2008) as well as the highest food price inflation rate (FAO 2009) in South Asia
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