Among the regions and countries where the food crisis has worsened due to the Covid-19, there are some where the situation is particularly alarming: Yemen, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Sahel region in West Africa, Ethiopia, Sudan, Sudan of the South and Syria. Hunger has also intensified in new hotspots such as Brazil, India and South Africa, countries that have been affected by the most significant increases in Covid-19 infection rates.
In Brazil, hunger has started to grow again, after dropping significantly until the middle of the last decade. The National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil shows that from 2013 to 2018, food insecurity increased 8% per year, but from 2018 to 2020, this growth accelerated, especially in the severe modality, and the total number of hungry people jumped from 10.3 million to 19.1 million.
Rising prices and food insecurity
In addition to the harmful effects of morbidity and mortality, Covid-19 has also caused an increase in food insecurity. As was predicted, the increase is related to the current pandemic since suppliers have been affected by disruptions in production, labour, and transportation. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food price index, prices rose at their fastest monthly rate in more than a decade. Prices also increased for 12 months in a row, reaching their highest value since September 2011. The most rising costs were for vegetable oils, grains and sugar.
Still, according to the index, food prices in May this year were 4.8% higher than in April, the most significant monthly increase since October 2010, and 39.7% higher than the same month in 2020.
Cost of eating for expats
Food costs for expats may vary. Restaurant meals can be fairly expensive, while basic groceries can be moderately priced. Expats who choose to eat at home can usually manage food costs more easily. Major cities have upscale grocery stores that carry a wide range of imported items, so it is important to get to know small markets and to talk to locals about where to find the most affordable and best quality products.
Shopping at local markets for basics such as bread, grains, meat, yields which are usually less expensive were the ones that suffered a little more from the rising of food prices. On the other hand, they are still more affordable than eating out. Besides, locally-produced food is almost always less expensive, so expats should also be attentive: if they are living on the coast, seafood will have better prices, while beef and pork will cost less in inland farming regions.
It is also important to find out what are the national products, as they might have a greater balance between prices and quality. If a world nomad wishes to keep its food habits from its motherland, food costs will have a great impact on the budget. However, expats going to France, for example, should probably find good cheese and wine at good deals, in Brazil, coffee and cachaça, the national liquor made from sugar cane, in Spain, olive oil and vegetables, in Nigeria, rice and corn, in Australia, nuts and fruits and so on.
The future of food prices
Recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the (FAO) issued a joint analysis on the Agricultural Outlook 2015-2024, which was widely reported as that both agencies anticipated higher agricultural production and lower prices in the next decade. The report is based on factors such as “high crop yields, higher productivity of the land and slower growth in global demand", as well as the supposed “benefits” of a drop in oil prices, which should contribute to lower energy and fertilizer costs and discourage the production of food-based biofuels.
These types of reports on trends in something as extremely unpredictable as food production are not very precise as it depends on many aspects, as the increasingly visible disastrous effects of climate change and the consequences of which are impossible to measure or value a priori. Besides, the enormous limitations of agricultural land and freshwater existing on our planet. As an example, to see what is happening in such a specific sector, we can mention the spread of avian influenza in the United States or in some European countries and the impact of the Covid pandemic on food production. So, although rising food prices will not stop expats from moving abroad, it is impossible to guess the effects that it may have on their budget, so the known financial planning is a must.
