Quick notes on March 2022 SA consumer food price inflation data
The recently released data by Statistics South Africa showed that the country’s consumer food price inflation moderated to 6,6% y/y in March 2022 from 6,7% y/y in the previous month.
South Africa’s consumer food price inflation path
We now expect South Africa’s consumer food price inflation to increase modestly from readings in recent months and possibly average 6,0% y/y in 2022.
What South Africa’s excessive rains mean for food prices
A recent survey done by Grain South Africa show that farmers in the Free State, Mpumalanga, North West, Limpopo, and KwaZulu-Natal ranked excessive rains as their biggest risk to crops this year.
Why did SA food price inflation surge in 2021, and what to expect in 2022?
Food prices often dominate the headlines in South Africa this year. On several occasions this year, some people questioned the rise in South Africa’s consumer food price inflation in a year of abundant agricultural harvest.
South Africa’s consumer food price inflation going into 2022
In a year of large crop harvests following good rainfall, a few people probably thought consumer food price inflation would accelerate as we have witnessed in the past ten months, averaging 6,6% y/y (compared with 4,5% y/y in 2020).
South Africa’s position in the global food security ladder
South Africa is now ranked 70th in the Global Food Security Index out of 113 countries, slipping from position 69 in 2020 and 44 in 2019. At face value, this decline is quite concerning. However, when one looks at the Index scoring’s technical position, it becomes clear that South Africa is not doing as badly as the “headline” ranking suggests.
Slightly higher than expected consumer food price inflation in August 2021
South Africa’s consumer food price inflation continues to surprise on the upside. We thought the start of the second half of the year would moderate the increase we observed in the past few months. But the data released by Statistics South Africa today show that consumer food price inflation accelerated to 7,4% y/y in August 2021 after registering 7,0% in the previous two months. This is the highest level since March 2017.
South Africa’s consumer food price inflation to moderate in second half of 2021
Although July 2021 consumer food price inflation of 7% y/y is unchanged from the previous month, there are clear signs in the underlying details that pressures are beginning to moderate.
Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity and Agriculture“.
He is a Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 (and re-appointed in 2022), having served on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture from 2018.
He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC).
Sihlobo is a columnist for Business Day, The Herald and Farmers Weekly magazine.
His weekly podcast, “Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo“, is available on all podcast platforms.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University.