Impact of food price increase on poor households in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Food price inflation was one of the major crises mooted in recent past. Marginalized poor people were hammered largely in developing countries including Sri Lanka. The awareness and preparedness for food crisis can reduce the impact as well as the social conflicts up to a certain extent. Hence, this study was designed to find out the awareness and impact of food price inflation among poor householders in rural Sri Lanka. A survey questionnaire was employed over 100 Samurdhi beneficiaries from Gampaha and Matara Districts. Data were analyzed using SPSS package. The results showed a positive relationship between education and level of awareness on food crisis (r = 0.325, P= 0.001). The majority of the sample was (77%) aware about the world food crisis and 88% of them has experienced it due to high prices of food commodities. The reasons they have put forwarded were climate change and lack of land for agriculture. There was a significant impact on spending on foods (p = 0.000) where the food expenses have increased after 2008 drastically. People have tried out to substitute wheat flour based products with rice based products showing a significant association between wheat and rice consumption (χ2= 13.05, P=0.000). The rural poor in Sri Lanka were aware about world food crisis with some valid justifications. Hence, they tend to go for substitutes in order to smooth the negative impact of high food prices. Hence, the government can formulate policies toward import substitutes especially on food items as the perception of rural poor is favourable to lessen the threat of food crisis in future.