As inflation soars, many Batswana households are changing the ways they shop and consume food. Recent data from Statistics Botswana shows that inflation quickened to 14.3% in July to its highest level, driven by price rises for fuel, food, fuel and miscellaneous services. This has had a profound effect on daily
behaviours, especially grocery shopping.
“Not only are Batswana reducing and altering their budgets, but they’re also changing what they’re shopping for, as they look for more cost-effective ways to keep up with inflation,” says Dietician, Lebogang Kopela. As concerned as they are, Kopela says Batswana are changing how they shop for groceries including opting for cheaper items, avoiding brand names and buying only the essentials.
Deciding between healthy foods or budget-friendly foods is a big factor for many Batswana right now. The Ukraine crisis is likely to have a snowball effect. As the prices of food continue to swim counter to trends, there is great concern that households might not be able to access nutritionally adequate food which may result in a surge in the prevalence of stunting and malnutrition.
“An increasing number of households are now ingesting food which has poor nutritive value. An increase in extreme poverty owing to rising food prices is very much likely to lead to higher malnutrition because poorer people eat less nutritious and healthy food,” she adds.
For now, it remains unclear when prices will come back down. Record high energy costs and the war in Ukraine have been major factors in rising food prices. While Ukraine is a major food exporter, it is also an exporter of several key chemicals used to make fertiliser. Industry insiders expect the trend of rising food prices to continue as long as the ongoing supply chain issues from the war in Ukraine drag on and inflation remains high.
A 2020 analysis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlights that majority of Batswana cannot afford a healthy or nutritious diet. The analysis which was done pre-Covid settles the fact that the problem of poor nutrition in Botswana is essentially on account of the unaffordability of good diets, and not on account of lack of information on nutrition. While things were already going badly pre-Covid, the Ukraine conflict has added fuel to the fire and resulted in immediate and far-reaching cascading consequences on food security in Botswana.
A political commentator who spoke to this publication indicated that scores of households are no longer eating the food they used to eat. He also said inflation has reduced the Pula’s purchasing power. “Look at the amount of food you could buy for P200, and then see what you could buy healthy for P200,” said Ronald Dintle, who has also been forced to change his food spending over the last few months.
“The Ukraine war has added to the cacophony of challenges that threaten to push scores of Batswana households into hunger,” he says.
Nature, a British weekly scientific journal which features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, also corroborates these findings. New analysis published in April notes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens to increase the number of malnourished people who have come under pressure from inadequate dietary intake. In Botswana, the global events are limiting access to nutrition for vulnerable women and children by directly impacting food security and diet quality through price increases. There is high chance that macro and micronutrient deficiencies are likely to take place. An increase in the price of staple foods can lead to a substantial reduction in energy intake. Furthermore, the prevalence of stunting, underweight and other forms of malnutrition may rise, slowing human development and economic growth.
The 2020 State of Food Security and nutrition in the World states that 64.5 percent of Batswana cannot afford a healthy diet. Furthermore, the report highlights that 32.8 percent of household income is channelled towards food expenditure. And while Covid-19 pandemic may be far from over, it is increasingly becoming clearer that the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are expected to pose nutritional risks to Botswana in the short and long term.
Prior to the pandemic, Botswana was already struggling with a double burden of malnutrition extremes. Various global fora such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and SADC Secretariat’s Regional Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis (RVAA) Programme have it on good record that the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) in Botswana is pegged above 22.5%.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health, malnutrition is deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients. The term malnutrition covers 2 broad groups of conditions. One is ‘under-nutrition’—which includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals). The other is overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer).
With progress in reducing malnutrition in Botswana having stalled, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 of ending hunger and malnutrition and to ensure nutritious food for all by 2030 seems a tall order.
Nutrition experts say there is need for Botswana to start looking into nutrition-sensitive agriculture where emphasis is placed on agricultural investment in nutrient-dense foods rather than staple foods. This likely to reduce a situation whereby households consume poor quality food with minute nutritional value.
