Food prices in Ghana to continue rising due to the impact of COVID-19 according to Esoko

Esoko said this is an effect of the novel coronavirus pandemic which has affected the production and supply of some commodities.

Esoko explained that this is because during the post lockdown period, two of the major staple foods; cassava and maize saw an increase in prices across some markets surveyed in Ghana.

They surveyed seven markets across Ghana. In the surveyed markets, a 91kg of cassava recorded the highest increase of 28.84% to record GHC124 in April 2020, compared to the previous month (March).

This was followed by cooking tomato and medium size of the pona variety of yam.

A 72kg crate and 100 tubers of tomato and yam sold for 826 and 815 cedis respectively.

This was followed by maize with its price increasing by 18.11%; to record GHC164 for a 100kg bag.

The Content Manager for Esoko, Francis Danso Adjei said “If there is too much rain, it spoils the cassava; within the month of April, we didn’t have a lot of rains to let the farmers uproot and sell the cassava. For the same month too, some markets also regulated how traders plied or how consumers go there to trade.”

The highest price for a 91kg of cassava was recorded in Accra. It cost GHC177. Meanwhile, Dambai recorded the lowest GHC98.

Kumasi recorded the highest price for a 72kg crate of tomato. It was sold at Kumasi at GHC1,233 with Takoradi recording the lowest of GHC398.

The highest price for a 50kg bag of imported rice was GHC400 in Tamale and Dambai while Techiman recorded the lowest of GHC320.

But the highest price for a 100 kg bag of local rice was GHC440 in Kumasi while Takoradi had the lowest price of GHC260.

Making projections for the next month, Francis Danso Adjei said they expect prices to go up mainly due to the possible impact of the restricted movements on markets.

“We are still not clear in our minds what is the way forward, and traders are also taking advantage of some of these things and adjusting prices. We are still in the off season coupled with COVID-19, we are still expecting that prices increase in May as well.”