The Problem On Our Plate

Grains, meats, edible oils will be pricey for now. RBI, GoI course correction will take 2 years

- Ashok Gulati & Ritika Juneja

Inflation is surging globally, with US inflation at 8.5%, Euro-zone at 7.5%, and India (CPI in March 2022) at 6.96%. Food prices are rising even faster. India’s food inflation (CPI food) in March 2022 was 7.7% year-on-year (YoY). Globally, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s Food Price Index hit an all-time high of 159.7 in March 2022, which is an increase of more than 30% over April 2021, and more than 70% over April 2020. It is very clear that this surge in global food prices has been in motion even before the Russia-Ukraine war erupted. Now it has flared even more with crude oil and gas prices rising in the wake of this war. This has raised freight and logistics costs across commodities and countries.

Prices of grains, feed and meat, and edible oils, in particular, are surging. Russia and Ukraine together contributed roughly one-fourth (or 52 million metric tonnes [MMT]) of global wheat exports of 203 MMT in 2021-22. With serious disruption in their supplies, global wheat markets are in a frenzy now.

The price of US hard red winter wheat has spiked by almost 75% in April 2022 over January-March 2021 ($495.3/tonne in April 2022 as against $283.9/tonne in January-March 2021.). Maize prices shot up by 44%, soya bean prices by 24.3%, poultry meat by 100%, palm oil prices by 66% over the same period (April 2022 over January-March 2021). Interestingly, global rice prices (Thai 25% broken) during the same period fell by about 19%! This was made possible by massive rice exports of 20 MMT from India in FY22 in a global market of 51 MMT.