Price hikes of food impact Yemeni living standards

The number of people living among poverty level is expected to rise due to the price hikes in food commodity, according to a report conducted by the World Bank. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and belongs to the Least Developed Countries. High population growth, slow economic development, declining oil resources, depleting water resources, poor standards of public health and education and widespread poverty remain the key challenges for the country. 

Rising food prices would just contribute to the increase of the number of poor in Yemen. As result, the World Food Program WFP discussed the problem of increasing prices in a press conference held recently. 

Yemen remains one of the least-developed countries in the world, ranking 153 out of 177 countries on the UNDP 2007 Human Development Index. With an average annual income of $760 per capita, Yemen’s 21.7 million people remain among the poorest in the world with over 40 percent of the population living on less than $2 per day.

Over the past nine months, global food prices have soared 40 percent, while food reserves are at a 30-year low. The rising cost of food is becoming a major source of global instability, social uncertainty and economic hardship. 

“Food prices have increased in response to many factors, including higher energy and fertilizer prices and droughts in Australia and other countries,” stated Mohammed El-Kouhene, Yemen’s WFP Country Director. He said that the increasing price of oil is the major reason behind this wave.

“The other face of hunger” threatens all countries, not only Yemen, said El-Kouhene. “Everyday starvation kills around 25,000 people, including children all over the world which means one child every six minutes.” Prices are rising everyday and so quickly. “Between June 2007 and March 2008, the price of basic cereals has increased 55 percent worldwide. Grains have not increased in this way in 28 years. The international price of grains increased to reach 80 percent in the same period,” added El-Kouhene. 

“There are several factors that have converged to create the conditions that are driving food prices up. First, of course, is the price of oil which leads to the increase of transportation prices by 40 percent,” explained El-Kouhene. Since large-scale agricultural businesses rely on machinery to plant, nurture, and harvest crops, higher oil prices means that it costs more to produce food. High oil prices also increase the cost of getting food to market. Second, there have been a number of climate-related events that have reduced food supplies. 

“Natural crises are also another factor behind rising prices of food. These disasters have increased 10 percent during the last few years due to the climate changing. Drought in Australia is the clear evidence,” added El-Kouhene. 

About two thirds of the population, including 80 percent of the country’s poor people, lives in rural areas, and most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture is a vital economic sector, providing jobs and income in a country with an unemployment rate of 37 percent and averting migration to urban areas. Still, the country’s poor natural resource base cannot meet the needs of a population that is increasing by more than 3 percent annually. Yemen has the world’s fourth fastest growing population, according to a recent UNICEF report.

Nowadays, people live in cities are closer to the danger of prices increasing. “More than six percent of Yemenis have dropped below the poverty line due to rising staple food prices, joining the 40 percent of Yemenis already living on less than $2 per day. What can a man do with $2 and seven people in his family? This will force families to eat only one meal a day,” said El-Kouhene. He says that those who gain less than $2 a day will be at serious danger. 

The increases have a direct impact on the diets of working and poor families. Already strained by high housing, energy and transportation costs, many households cut out more expensive foods such as cheese and fresh vegetables, or simply cut back on the amount of food they buy.

In order to feed their families, those Yemenis living below the poverty line will have to either skip meals, decrease their intake of fruits, vegetables and meat, or discontinue medical visits and schooling for their children.

Depending on one meal a day will affect health conditions, particularly children’s. According to the 2004 Food Insecurity Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), 43 percent of the households (8.3 million people) are “generally food-insecure”; 22 percent (4.3 million) are “definite food-insecure”. Prevalence varied by governorate from 27 percent to 86 percent and by ecological zone. Approximately 8 percent of all households (1.5 million) are considered “food insecure with severe hunger”.

Child malnutrition rates are amongst the highest in the world, with wasting at 12 percent and stunting at 53percent for under-5 children. Infant and under-5 mortality rates are estimated at 75 and 100 per 1,000 live births, respectively (UNICEF 2006). Maternal mortality is also high and estimated at 370 per 100,000.

Other problems, such as the water shortage and the using of arable land for qat production, are under government review, but the 46 percent of Yemenis living in dire poverty do not have the luxury of waiting for solutions. “Lands which were suitable for plants have been spoiled by qat. Therefore, these lands are not suitable to be planted with grains and beneficial plants,” said El-Kouhene.

The effect of qat production and consumption in Yemen is profound. Some 72% of Yemeni males chew qat, compared to 33% of females, with 42% of the males and 13% of the females do that daily (WB 2006). Expenditure for qat is largely at the expense of food consumption and has an adverse effect on the ability of the body to absorb nutrients.  El-Kouhene said that rising food prices will cause some problems with his program. The state of the nation’s food instability which has increased due to price hikes, has become more precarious as the $28 million gap between the WFP’s budget and Yemen’s needs continue to grow.

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