How Much Did Developing Country Domestic Staple Food Prices Increase During the World Food Crisis?
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Using data from a new FAO price database, we found that domestic staple food prices in developing countries typically increased by 48 percent in real terms during the world food crisis. Given that most of the world’s poor are net food consumers, such large price increases almost certainly had severe impacts on the effective purchasing power of the poor, which in turn likely affected the number of meals eaten as well as the nutritional quality of food consumed. While domestic prices have declined from their peaks in most countries, the declines have been small thus far and real prices are typically 19 percent higher than they were two years earlier, even after accounting for inflation. Thus, many poor people are faced with higher food prices in the midst of a global economic slowdown.