Esoko predicts 5% increment in foodstuffs

Commodity Analysts Esoko Ghana has predicted that prices of foodstuff may go up by between 5 and 10 percent in the last quarter of this year.

According to Esoko, the increment could be attributed to the rising cost of fuel as well as the Bagre Dam spillage in Burkina Faso, which flooded and destroyed farms in some regions in the north.

In an interview with Accra based Citi FM, Content Analyst at Esoko Ghana Francis Danso Adjei warned Ghanaians to brace themselves to pay more for the same quantity of foodstuff soon.

“From our initial assessment, we don’t see prices coming down. If anything at all we see prices of food going up between 5 to 10 percent by end of the year, “he said.

Meanwhile, the General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) has also expressed a similar stance due to the level of damage caused to farms in the Northern part of Ghana.

General Secretary of GAWU, Edward Kareweh said: “generally there has been an increase in food prices as compared to 2017”.

He argued that “There is nothing to show that the prices will come down by the end of the year. What we can say is that prices will go up because if you look at the combined effect of fuel price increases which will lead to increase in transportation to the hinterlands to convey food to the urban centers or market centers, if you look at the effect of the recent flood that occurred in the North as a result of the spillage of the Bagre dam from Burkina Faso and the heavy rainfall, you will just have to conclude, and reasonably so that no one should expect prices to come down and we should expect an increase in food prices in the coming period,”

He also recommended that it is important to develop a system that will help in the storage of food to prevent price hike anytime there is a shortage in supply.