Impacts in Uganda of rising global food prices: the role of diversified staples and limited price transmission

Abstract

This study assesses the potential impact of rising world food prices on the welfare of Ugandan households. While Uganda experienced sharply higher food prices in 2008, as a landlocked, food‐exporting country the causes of those price changes were mainly regional and indirect rather than directly transmitted from global markets. Using trade volumes, food prices, and household survey data we describe how Uganda, unlike some other countries, is partially shielded from direct impacts of global food price movements. Although the majority of Ugandans are net food buyers, the adverse impact at household‐level of rising global prices is moderated by the relatively large quantity and range of staples consumed that come from home production. Moreover, several of these are not widely traded. Some population groups in Uganda are vulnerable to rising food prices, however, primarily those for whom maize is an important staple, including those dependent upon humanitarian relief and the urban poor. Only a relatively small group of Ugandan households will benefit directly and immediately from rising food prices—the significant net sellers of food crops constituting between 12% and 27% of the population. In this assessment we do not estimate the level and extent of wider second round effects from these higher prices.

International to Domestic Price Transmission in Fourteen Developing Countries during the 2007–8 Food Crisis

“…Such findings are supported by other studies on countries in Africa (Benson, Mugarura, and Wanda 2008;Cudjoe, Breisinger, and Diao 2010;Minot 2011), Asia (Dawe 2008;Robles 2011), and Latin America (de Janvry and Sadoulet 2010; Robles 2011).…”

“…In Kenya, several years of drought-induced poor harvests generated a need for large imports of maize in 2008 (Benson et al 2008;Nzuma 2013) Arndt et al (2008) suggest that part of the domestic price shock was due to the unusually high international prices as the government did little to prevent price transmission (see also Nhate and Massingarela 2013). Also, part of the price volatility in Figure 8 seems to be seasonal.…”

The effects of agricultural trade openness on food price transmission in Latin American countries

“…Although some authors claim that in many countries price transmission is not high (Benson et al, 2008;Minot, 2011;Baquedano & Liefert, 2014), we estimated quite elevated long-term price transmission rates between 0.71 and 0.82 in LAC. Our findings show that international trade and market integration has led to different degrees of price transmission rates in the studied countries.…”

Charting the cost of nutritionally-adequate diets in Uganda, 2000-2011

“…An increase in staple food prices tends to reduce average dietary energy consumption, and worsens the distribution of food calories, especially for poor households, who spend a larger fraction on their income on food than better-off households [5]. In Uganda, nearly two-thirds of households are net buyers of staples, a pattern that underscores the potential importance of food prices as a driver of food insecurity [6]. High food prices in Uganda have been widely perceived as undermining food security and slowing progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) of ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030 and achieving World Health Assembly targets of stunting and wasting in children under five years of age by 2025.…”