Mozambicans die for bread amid rising food prices

Mozambicans die for bread

Victorine Ntambo reports on the recent bread protests in Mozambique and the global increase in food prices.

It is terrible for Mozambicans to die for bread. The prices of basic commodities and utilities have been on the rise across Africa – and possibly all over the world for some time now – but the average man’s salary barely increases. This seems to be of little or no concern to most governments who expect their citizens to cope with the little they take home.

In most countries, these increases have not lead to massive rioting, even though people have protested in silence. To increase the price of bread by 25% looks like punishment to heads of households because in most households, bread and related wheat products are consumed at least once a day. When wheat prices went up because Russia had placed a ban on wheat exports, the price of wheat products was forced to go up as well.

Mozambicans decided to take it to the streets after their government announced that the 25% increase in the price of bread and other increases were taking effect from Monday 6 September 2010. As a result of the strike, 13 people gave up their lives and over 400 were left injured. In a country with little cellphone access, Bloomberg News reported that SMSs were a successful communication tool used to spark the riots. After two days of serious rioting, injuries and deaths, the government suspended the hike and restored bread subsidies. For the friends and families of the dead and even the injured, this is a very high price to pay for a basic commodity like bread.

Basic commodities are meant to be accessible to the poorest of all poor people. In Mozambique, where an approximately 80% of the population lives in poverty, this access has been proven possible only by the lives of the dead. Prices may continue to go up internationally. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the following six reasons explain the increase in food prices:

• The fall of cereal production from 2005 caused by bad weather in major producing countries;
• Low stock levels which magnified the impact of production shortfalls as markets worry about the lack of a buffer;
• The high correlation between petroleum prices and food prices. Thus the rapid rise in petroleum prices exerted an upwards pressure on food prices as fertilizer prices nearly tripled and transport costs doubled over a two-year period;
• An increased demand from the biofuels sector also tended to push prices upwards;
• Economic growth in some large developing countries is leading to changes in diet and increased demand for food crops;
• And trade policies put in place by some countries, such as export bans, have contributed to higher prices in certain cases.

Going through these points, it seems the common person can do nothing to remedy the situation. It seems mothers still have to cope using their fixed allowances to put bread on their tables irrespective of the number of people in their household. It seems the highest burden is borne by developing countries whether or not lives are lost for bread.