SUB-SAHARAN African economies will likely suffer from exacerbated food insecurity if new shocks continue to drive up food prices, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has said.
“If you look to grain prices over the past six, seven months, they have increased significantly because of the fertilizers,” Zeine Zeidane, director of the IMF’s African Department, told Xinhua in a recent interview, noting that there is always “a lag effect” with fertilizers.
“You may not be able to plant in the next season, or plant with limited fertilizers. If you have limited access to fertilizers, you would expect that the yield that you have from agriculture will fall, and that will affect prices,” Zeidane said.
The US-Iran conflict and disruptions linked to the Strait of Hormuz drove up fertilizer prices considerably this year, but that’s just one factor affecting food insecurity prospects in sub-Saharan Africa, he said, noting that the other factor is the attack on grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, due to the ongoing Ukraine crisis.
“If new shocks happen, we’ll also have probably low agricultural production in many places in the world, including in Africa,” Zeidane said.
El Nino, in particular, could significantly affect agricultural output and push up food inflation, he said. — Xinhua
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