Enforce system compliance to tackle unfair food prices — Expert advocates

The Consumers International specialist for fair food prices in Africa, Davine Minayo, is calling on regulators to enforce compliance to systems as part of measures to tackle unfair food prices in the country.

This, she said will prevent abuse of market dominance and anti-competitive practices causing unfair food prices in the country.

Such a move will also not only benefit consumers but small-scale farmers who currently earn less than what they produce.

She explained that the issue of unfair food prices remains a challenge for the African continent despite the fall on global markets, a clear evidence that value was not being distributed fairly in our food marketplace.

The situation, she said was causing serious consumer harm such that more than 15 million people in Ghana representing 49 per cent of the population were food insecure in 2022.

“To address this issue, it is important to work with the competition authority to make businesses comply with regulatory authorities especially in cases where prices of food commodities have risen higher than the world,” she said.

Mrs Minayo made the call at a multi-stakeholder workshop on unfair food prices in Ghana organised by GITC in partnership with Consumers International in Accra.

The event brought together policy makers and players in the food supply chain to share evidence and expertise on unfair food prices and discuss policy and enforcement actions required from authorities to take action against unfair food prices caused by anti-competitive practices.

According to data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Ghana's inflation rate climbed to a three-month high in June, primarily driven by soaring food prices. 

Annual inflation accelerated to 42.5 per cent in June, up from 42.2 per cent in May driven partly by higher food inflation.

Food inflation consistently showed a higher rise, with a difference of approximately 20 percentage points compared to non-food inflation.

Food inflation stood at 54.2 per cent surpassing the national average. The prices of imported food products recorded a substantial increase of 43.8 per cent, while locally produced items experienced a rise of 36.2 per cent.

She said her outfit was intervening in this space as most consumers continue to be food insecure, a situation which is dire. 

“So, we are working in this space to bring together stakeholders so that we can improve the available evidence on the prices of food and come up with good solutions to address this,” she said.

The Agriculture Economist and a Senior Lecturer with the Agriculture Economics and Agribusiness Department at the University of Ghana , Dr Yaw Osei-Asare encouraged government to prioritise agriculture.

He said creating an enabling environment for farmers to thrive will encourage more people especially the youth to venture into the agriculture space.

That, he said will increase productivity and help reduce the high prices of food in the country.

For his part, the Communication, Advocacy and Programmes Lead for CUTS, Shadrack Nii Yarboi Yartey, called for a policy that criminalises anti-competitive practices.