Reading Time: 2 minutes

Rice Price Rise

A new report (by PMBEJD) shows that the price of rice has gone up a lot in South Africa.

The report highlights that rice prices have increased by 35% since last year.

This is a big problem because rice is a common food that many people eat as a staple.

International Factors Pushing the Rice Price

The price of rice has gone up around the world because of various issues.

India, which is the source of about 40% of rice exported worldwide, has limited how much rice it sells to other countries.

The weather in parts of Asia has also caused problems for rice crops further reducing the availability. And when there is less of a thing available, then generally the price goes up as people compete over who will get the thing.

Combined with that you have increased transport costs and it is a perfect storm for the rice process. All these different factors have made rice more expensive for everyone including South Africans.

SA Struggling With Food Inflation

The PMBEJD report also looked at how much it costs for families to buy enough good food.

They found that the average cost of food for a household has gone up by 5.1% in the past year.

Many families are struggling to afford food and of those who can many are buying food that is unhealthy or does not have the nutritional benefits needed.

The report even says that due to affordability most working class people will likely spend 45.4% less on food than their family actually need them to. This means they don’t have enough money to buy healthy food for everyone in the family.

It’s important to be aware that the price of rice may unfortunately continue to rise until some of these factors change and with all the bad weather world wide, and ongoing political conflicts this is not looking too likely.

image credit – Rice fields: Image by hartono subagio from Pixabay