The World Food Day is an event celebrated annually on the 16th October, which also marks the anniversary of FAO. The aim of this event is to create awareness on agriculture, food production, the challenges being faced in this sector and what can be done to mitigate the negative effects. Since 1980 (the first time the World Food Day was celebrated), FAO has been setting a theme every year and the theme for this year (2011) is: “Food Prices – From Crisis to Stability”.
From the World Food Day 2011 Video by FAO, the following have been given as the causes of High food prices:

  • Insufficient grain resources
  • Fluctuating Energy prices
  • Population trends
  • Rapid Economic Growth
  • Extreme weather
But does this situation apply for Mauritius? In order to get the answers, some friends and I decided to talk to the stakeholders concerned and see what are their opinions regarding food prices and the World Food Day theme as a whole. We went to a supermarket and market in Port-Louis (the Capital City of Mauritius) to talk to the staff/vegetable & Meat sellers and consumers were interviewed as well. 
It was around 2 p.m when we arrived in Port-Louis. The Capital City of Mauritius is known to be very crowded with people, high temperature and traffic jam. We made our first stop in a supermarket to have a look at the food prices:

Biscuits
Rice
Fruits
Bread
Canned Food
Cereals
Canned Fish
Milk (powder)
Cheese

The pictures above give an idea on the prices of different commodities in Mauritius (1 USD = 30 Mauritian Rupees). But as we did not know much about price fluctuations, we went to talk to some consumers to get more information. I met a lady in her 50’s, who has preferred to be anonymous and shared her opinions on food prices in Mauritius:
“Over the past 3-4 years, food prices have only increased and when this happens, there is never a decline in price after it. Prices keep on increasing, but our salary remain more or less the same, which means that we have to invest more in food and hence our standard of living is not really improving.”


Below are some examples of increased food prices from 2009 to 2011 that were given by the same lady:
Powdered milk (1 kg) –> from Rs 100 to Rs 180
Meat – Beef (0.5 kg) –> from Rs 100 to Rs 150
Chicken (0.5 kg) –> from Rs 40 to Rs 68
Pulses (0.5 kg) –> from Rs 8 to Rs 18
Rice (0.5 kg) –> from Rs 20 to Rs 30-35
Apple/Orange –> from Rs 10 (3 units) to Rs 5 per unit
Egg (per unit) –> from Rs 5 to Rs 7 
Fish (0.5 kg) –> from Rs 60-75 to Rs 125
Sugar (2 kg) –> from Rs 40 to Rs 75


From these figures, it can be seen that there has been an increase in prices of food which we consume daily. 


We made our next stop to the Port Louis market (Known as “Bazar Port-Louis” in the local language). There, we went to interview vegetable sellers and the questions which were asked were mainly about their opinions on food prices for the past years, the challenges they are facing in their work and what can be done to improve the situation. 
Below are some pictures taken at the Port-Louis market:

Carrots
Interview with lettuce seller
Lemons
Beetroot
Fruits
Vegetable and fruit seller
Cauliflower
Vegetable seller (cabbage and cauliflower)
Cabbage
Tomato seller
Staple food (Sweet potato, cassava etc.)
Tomato seller
A customer giving sharing her opinion on food prices

The general comments obtained from the vegetable sellers are as follows:

  • For the past 4-5 months the price of vegetables have remained more or less stable
  • The factors which cause change in food prices are cyclones, competition with supermarkets and hotels, pest and diseases, climate change
  • Measures that can be taken to regulate food prices are: more local production, a feasible marketing strategy, research on resistant varieties, provide land to farmers and give subsidies on inputs
From these visits, the general conclusions which can be drawn are: despite the fact that the price of some commodities have stayed more or less stable over the years (Vegetables for example), an overall increase in food prices has been observed in Mauritius, thereby confirming that the World Food Day Theme “Food Prices – From Crisis to Stability” is indeed applicable to Mauritius.

What are the impacts of high food prices in the country?
  • Population has to invest more in food
With an increase in food prices, a huge proportion of the population’s salary are going in buying food and in some cases, this is exceeding 50%. This means that when more money is invested in food, less investment is done in education or leisure. This situation is not helping in improving the standard of living of the vulnerable groups.
  • Vulnerable groups look for food which is cheaper
In our population exist a group which do not have the financial capacity to buy the vegetables in the market and other food commodities in supermarkets. These people buy their food only in places where the prices are lower (hawkers on the street who sell vegetables and other commodities which are not of good quality, sales in shops/supermarkets). This results in problems like malnutrition and food poisoning (which is becoming a serious issue in the country), showing the fact that the signs of food insecurity are here! The food is here in the country, but safe and nutritious food are not accessible to everyone at all times.

What can be done to improve the situation in Mauritius?
  • Boost local production
One of the major reasons why we are having the problem of high food prices and food insecurity in Mauritius is the we are not producing enough food locally. Presently, we are importing 70% of our total food consumption and the import bill exceeds Rs 25 billion. The solution for this will be to gradually start boosting our local production by engaging more people in agriculture. We have an ageing farmer population and more youth should be involved in the agriculture value-chain.
  • Tackle social issues from grass-root levels
If we analyse the situation well, we will see that all social issues are inter-related; Unemployment causes poverty, poverty causes hunger, hunger causes malnutrition. These affect the health and education of the individual and may lead to problems like theft, violence, crime etc. Agriculture has the potential of solving these social issues as it is a source of employment, which many are not considering. What needs to be done is to encourage people who are trapped in these social issues into agriculture by providing them technical and financial support (subsidies on inputs etc.).
  • Proper marketing of agricultural products
It can also be observed that marketing of agricultural products also has a huge impact on food prices. The group of vegetable sellers that we met mentioned this as a major problem for them. There are too many intermediaries in marketing of vegetables, which increase the food prices. Therefore, a proper marketing strategy can be adopted, whereby there is less gap between the food prices from the producer to the consumer.


In order to do the above, there should be new policies so that the vulnerable group and the population as a whole are protected.

Personally, this small visit has been very enriching since we got to know the opinions of the people who are directly involved in the buying and selling of food, and also about the situation of food prices in Mauritius. More to come in the following blog posts! 🙂 
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