Food affordability is often discussed through rising grocery bills and cost-of-living pressures. However, food prices do not exist in isolation. Broader inflation trends and increasing levels of food insecurity provide important context regarding how food affordability changed between 2018 and 2022.
This story combines food price, inflation and food insecurity data to examine how food affordability changed between 2018 and 2022. While the data cannot prove direct causal relationships, it offers insight into whether rising food costs formed part of a broader food affordability challenge during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food affordability became a growing concern following the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chain disruptions, rising production costs and broader economic uncertainty contributed to increasing food prices across many countries.
To understand how these changes unfolded, the chart compares food price movements in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Using 2018 as a common baseline allows the rate of change to be compared directly, regardless of differences in the original prices of food items.
Food price changes after 2020 varied strongly across the five countries. Ethiopia recorded the steepest increase in the indexed series, while Kenya and Afghanistan moved in the opposite direction in this dataset.
The divergence between countries suggests that while global factors influenced food prices, local economic conditions and food systems also played an important role in shaping affordability outcomes.
A rise in average food prices does not tell the whole story. Households purchase different types of food, and some items can become significantly more expensive than others. Examining individual food categories provides a clearer picture of where affordability pressures were concentrated and which products contributed most to rising grocery costs.
Price growth was not evenly distributed across food categories. Some staple foods experienced relatively modest increases, while others recorded substantial price rises across multiple countries.
This variation suggests that households depending heavily on particular foods may have faced greater financial pressure than national averages imply. The findings indicate that food affordability challenges were driven not only by rising prices overall but also by sharp increases in key staple products.
Food prices are often discussed as part of broader inflation trends. However, inflation measures price changes across the entire economy, while food represents only one component of household spending.
Comparing food prices with general inflation helps identify whether food affordability pressures were simply part of wider economic conditions or whether food costs increased more rapidly than other goods and services.
The results show that food prices outpaced general inflation in several countries, most notably Ethiopia and South Africa which experienced food price growth that exceeded general inflation, indicating worsening food affordability.. In contrast, Kenya and Afghanistan experienced higher overall inflation relative to food price growth.
This difference suggests that the affordability challenges faced by households cannot always be explained by inflation alone. In some countries, food costs became a particularly important source of financial pressure.
Rising food prices can place pressure on household budgets, but their broader impact can also be observed through measures of food insecurity. People experiencing Phase 3+ food insecurity face significant challenges in accessing adequate food and often require urgent assistance.
This chart compares severe food insecurity with the food price index to examine whether changes in food access occurred alongside price movements before and after the pandemic period.
Food insecurity increased sharply around 2020 and remained substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels in subsequent years. The timing coincides with the period in which many countries experienced significant economic disruption and food market instability. Although food insecurity is influenced by multiple factors, the trend suggests that affordability pressures may have contributed to worsening food access for vulnerable populations.
This pattern suggests that the challenges associated with food access persisted beyond the immediate disruption caused by the pandemic.
Food affordability is shaped by more than food prices alone. Inflation affects household purchasing power, while food insecurity captures the real-world consequences of economic hardship. Comparing these indicators together provides a broader view of changing food conditions over time.
To make the three measures directly comparable, each series is indexed to a common baseline of 2018 = 100. This allows the rate of change, rather than the original values, to be compared across all three indicators.
Food insecurity increased at a much faster rate than either food prices or inflation. While both price measures rose gradually over the period, food insecurity nearly doubled relative to the 2018 baseline.
This suggests that the impacts of economic shocks extended beyond rising prices and were reflected in worsening access to food. The findings indicate that affordability challenges were not solely a matter of higher prices but also of declining household resilience and purchasing power.
The data reveals a clear decline in food affordability after 2020. Food prices increased across several countries, with some essential food categories experiencing particularly large rises. In several cases, food prices also grew faster than general inflation, suggesting that pressure on household food budgets was greater than headline inflation figures alone indicate.
At the same time, global food insecurity increased sharply and remained elevated. When food prices, inflation, and food insecurity are viewed together, food insecurity emerges as the fastest-growing indicator, highlighting the broader impact of economic disruption on access to food.
Overall, the findings suggest that the challenge was not simply higher food prices, but a broader deterioration in food affordability and food security.
Generative AI tools were used in a limited capacity during the development of this assignment, primarily to assist with R code troubleshooting. All analytical decisions, narrative framing, and design choices were made by the author. This acknowledgement is made in accordance with RMIT University’s guidelines on the use of generative AI in assessment.
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