The Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) is an Africa-wide network of regional nodes supporting the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Africa-based centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to facilitate the implementation of AU/NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The ReSAKSS nodes offer high-quality analyses to improve policymaking, track progress, document success, and derive lessons for the implementation of the CAADP agenda. The goal of the ReSAKSS Working Paper series is to provide timely access to results of preliminary research and data analysis that relate directly to strengthening ongoing discussions and critical commentaries on the future direction of African agriculture and rural development.
Domestic food prices in southern Africa increased in 2008. The economies in the region were not completely insulated from the global shock. The rate at which food prices increased in 2008 was, however, lower than the rate of increase in international food prices. Further, the rate and extent of increases in food prices across countries in the region were not uniform. During the food crisis, net exporting countries, such as S. Africa, experienced modest increases in domestic prices and were shielded from the full shock of food prices but net importers, such as Mozambique, experienced large increases in food prices. The Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Southern Africa (ReSAKSSSA) undertook a regional study to monitor the dynamics of the region’s food prices in the recent past (from 2000 to date) and their impacts on the region’s food security.
The objectives of this study were to:
(i) Document, describe and characterize the price movements of key food commodities in southern Africa with special reference to maize.
(ii) Provide knowledge on causes and effects of the food crises.
(iii) Identify policies that governments implemented to reduce the negative impacts of rising food prices. Although the study is regional in nature, data from four countries (Malawi, Mozambique, S. Africa and Zambia) were used in constructing a regional picture.
This report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 2 looks at the causes of the crisis of global food prices. This chapter focuses on food availability in the region, the transmission of global price increases to the region and other factors. Chapter 3 characterizes the extent of the increase in food prices in the region. The broad aim of this characterization was to measure the extent and speed of the increase in general prices and food prices in the 2008/09 marketing season. This chapter compares the surge in general prices and food prices in 2008/09 with the crisis experienced in earlier periods of this decade. Chapter 4 focuses on price patterns of the main crop staple in the region, maize. This chapter looks at the behavior of maize prices across the four countries in the 2008/09 marketing season and examines the extent to which it deviates from the expected path.