A new report by the Institute of Development Studies, a UK-based think tank, has placed Sri Lanka as the 5th poorest country in the world in terms of food affordability.

The report, which was compiled through a publicly available global cost-of-living database, Numbeo, was used in creating a ‘cost of food basics’ analysis that compares the monthly minimum recommended spend on food per adult and monthly average wage in 107 countries across the world.

The minimum recommended amount of food is based on 12-14 basic items that together would account for 2,100 calories per adult per day which is the level recommended by the World Health Organisation for energy needs.

The Cost of Food Basics found that, more than one year since the outbreak of COVID-19, there is vast disparity between countries in terms of the proportion of average wages needed to afford enough food.

The top 10 countries where basic food is least affordable in are Syria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Indonesia, Algeria, Iran and Uzbekistan.

Basic food is least affordable in Syria, where the minimum recommended monthly spend would account for 177 per cent of average wage income per adult, followed by Nigeria where 101 per cent of the average wage is spent on food.

In Sri Lanka, the monthly minimum recommended expenditure for food per person was US$ 161.23, while the average monthly wage per adult in the country stood at US$ 245.81.

Researchers pointed out, 

This means that 66 percent of average wages per person would need to be spent to afford the minimum recommended amount of food for an adult. This is before considering other costs such as feeding their family or expenses including rent, transport, utilities and other non-food purchases”.

In contrast, in neighbouring India, the recommended minimum monthly expenditure on basic foods accounted for only 27 percent of monthly wages.

Sri Lanka’s food inflation has been growing by double digits during the last few months, while the real wages of private sector and informal sector workers have recorded a contraction due to the pandemic. 

According to 2020 Global Food Security Index (GFSI), high agricultural import tariffs (above global average), food inflation and absence of comprehensive food safety-net programmes with a national coverage remain key weak indicators in food affordability.