Reading Time: 3 minutes The number of food insecure people rises every year in the region in general. However, this phenomenon of the Ramadan time inflation is significant every year. The rise in demand of food and staples especially eggs, oil, flour and meat tends to rise in this time of year.
Almost 40% of the Pakistani population lives below the poverty line, and a very small portion of the population owns property. Most of the population lives on rent or are homeless and have to live in extended families within a single home that is insufficient for living comfortably.
The coronavirus for the last two years has further shrunk the economy and more and more people have become unemployed. The PTI government saw 18 million more people falling into poverty and there does not seem to be any form of recovery in sight.
The advent of Ramadan is globally greeted with celebration. The month-long period of religious devotion in the form of fasting and prayer comes to an end with the jubilant festivities of Eid. This of course is accompanied by a period of heightened grocery and clothes shopping for the pre and post-fast meals and the celebration of Eid.
The trend, globally, is that discounts and free rations are offered in consideration for those that are fasting through the hot days of Ramadan. This holds true even in Muslim minority states like the UK and the US.
Unfortunately, however, the same does not hold true for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The month of Ramadan is generally accompanied with a spike in inflation as the purchasing power of the rupee goes down.
Over the decades, for the lower-middle class, the Sehri and Iftari meals have become less and less lavish. Going from eggs and meat in the morning to chickpeas and roti. The poor have resorted to breaking their fasts with water instead of dates.
The number of food insecure people rises every year in the region in general. However, this phenomenon of the Ramadan time inflation is significant every year. The rise in demand of food and staples especially eggs, oil, flour and meat tends to rise in this time of year.
This is supplemented by artificially inflated prices of vegetables and fruits where producers and middle-men hoard the food in warehouses to control supply to maximize profits.
Profiteering spikes during the month. Despite being a Muslim majority state, there is no leniency in the prices of essentials like gram flour, oil, dates and watermelon.
This annual inflation tends to be 10 to 15% in the month leading up to the month of Ramadan. However, general inflation is not a good indicator of rising food prices during the month. Though the SPI inflation (Sensitive Price Indicators) might be 12%, the price of specific food products tends to skyrocket. For example, tomatoes tend to have more than a 120% price increase during Ramadan. This followed by onions, dal, and sugar which have their prices artificially inflated much beyond the average.
Profiteering, badly organized supply chains, lack of storage and demand-management and lack of prediction of demand patterns especially in Ramadan contributes to the larger inflation problem during the month of Ramadan.
The Bureau of Supply and Prices has endeavored to crackdown on suppliers that contribute to the inflation problem. In 2021 Karachi alone saw more than 1100 instances of fines imposed on profiteering individuals.
However, these suppliers also tend to be people unable to control the rise in prices in most instances.
Larger sector profiteering is let go whilst individual shop-keepers are fined and prosecuted. The issue of inflation with regards to food prices and Ramadan are part of a bigger problem and needs to be treated as such.
It is necessary for the government to analyze demand patterns and try to head that off with policy that increases production during that peak of consumption during that time. This would keep prices for staples down that only hurts the poorest of the poor.
This has an exponential effect as it stops panic-buying if demand rises too far beyond available supplies as well.
It is hoped that in 2022 we see a Ramadan where the poor do not have to worry about breaking their fasts with water.
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