Consumers pay up for oil, fruit and bread
Food inflation for oil and fats stood at a whopping 25.7% between April and June this year, compared to an inflation rate of 12.6% over the same period last year.The biggest drivers of this were the price increases in cooking oil and fats of 38.4% and 26.3% respectively. In contrast, butter experienced a minimal deflation of around 0.3%.
The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) said in its bulletin for the second quarter of 2022 that annual food inflation grew at a faster rate (6.6%) than other items in the consumer basket (5.7%).
The NSA says the average family spends around 14.8% of their disposable income on food purchases.
The bulletin was released on September 28.
Apart from oils, the price of fruit, bread and grains left Namibians reeling. The latter products showed inflation of 16.1% and 6.8% respectively. In the same period last year, fruit inflation was 8.3%.
Avocados showed the biggest price increase of up to 72.5%, followed by citrus (8.3%) and canned fruit (7.3%). In contrast, the price of grapes, watermelons and apples decreased slightly.
During last year's second quarter, bread and cereal inflation stood at 4%. This year, the inflation for bread and cake flour is a solid 14.2%, followed by cake at 11%, baby food and porridge at 10.3% and rice at 2.1%.
In general, meat - as a category on its own - showed the lowest inflation (3.8%), followed by fish and vegetables at 4.2% respectively.
Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
The NSA says the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors contributed at least 12.7% to the gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2022.
In addition, the agricultural sub-sector, specifically crops and livestock, contributed 9.7%.
The crop sector contributed 5.8% to GDP, followed by the livestock sector's contribution at 3.9%, fisheries at 2.7% and forestry at 0.3%.
The total production of cereal crops stood at 55.029 tonnes in the second quarter, compared to around 38.436 tonnes over the same period last year.
The biggest contribution came from white maize, the production of which rose by 43.9%.
Exports from these sectors earned N$4.1 billion in the second quarter of 2022, while the import bill over the same period stood at N$1.2 billion, which means the sector showed a surplus of N$2.9 billion.
The sector grew by 1.6% in the second quarter, compared to 2.8% in the second quarter of 2021. – [email protected]