Food Fight
The struggle between nourishment, pricing and availability during COVID-19
By Anisha Singh in collaboration with Amy Shipow and Salome Njambi
Jane (fictional name), a working mother, earns a living as a small trader selling shoes in the bustling Toi market in Nairobi. Whatever money she makes selling today will help Jane put food on the table for her and her children tonight. Nutrition from this evening meal will give Jane the energy and strength she needs to wake up early and set up her shop, where the cycle begins again. Research finds that when low income households add 10% to their income, they spend about 7% more on food and this extra spending is shared between getting more calories and purchasing more expensive (better tasting, wider variety) calories.
With COVID-19 leading to unemployment, income losses, disruptions in food environments, we interviewed 11 women through in-depth interviews, to understand their food and purchasing behaviors, shifts in prices, affordability, and availability of food for them.
What are we hearing from the ground?
We find that a majority have lost their main source of income and find it difficult to cover the costs of rent and food. Despite home-schooling and child-care, women report having more time on their hands to be able to cook, however, don’t have food to actually prepare the meal. They also report reducing variety in their pantries, shifting their choice of food items, reducing the quantity of food purchased as well as the number of daily meals.
When asked how they would allocate a hypothetical 200 Kenyan Shillings, food, specifically maize and cooking oil, was the first preference for everyone. Previous literature has highlighted that low income households tend to allocate any additional income to luxury goods such as sweets, seafood, and so on. Except now any additional income would be filling in a loss in previous income.
Only two households were in receipt of any kind of assistance toward food, either from a religious group or through a government initiative — most government initiatives have been directed toward cash transfers so far. Pairing heightened anxiety over ‘joblessness’ and loss of household income with changes in food habits and a lack of assistance, paints a larger policy concern over the environment created by COVID-19.
Have meals and food choices changed?
For the women we spoke to, a typical meal before COVID-19, consisted of ugali (a popular type of cornmeal porridge), rice or chapati, meat and vegetables. Now, a typical meal is ugali and vegetables. Across the board, households have dropped meat, eggs, and chapati from their menu. Children in the house earlier had more variety (including instant noodles, fruit, spaghetti), now they eat the same meal as the adults without these ‘temptation foods’.
Overall, households have reduced the quantity of food purchased, some report reducing the number of meals in a day and skipping lunch. The same holds true for children: women mentioned that the biggest reduction for children is the quantity of food they can now eat. With children home from school (due to the closure of educational institutions) and more people at home (due to closure of shops, restaurants etc), there are now more people to feed with the same (or even reduced) purchasing power as before. This raises a big concern over nutrition for the household, especially for children.
What’s driving the change?
It’s not just loss of income, most women report an increase in prices in common food items as well. There have been reports on the government considering invoking the Price Control Act, however, this hasn’t come into effect yet (at the point of data collection and writing this article) and is having a clear effect on purchasing power for households in poverty. Of the staple diet that includes maize, rice, sugar, vegetables and grams, all women noted an increase in the prices of maize and sugar and a few mentioned increasing prices of vegetables and gram as well — and with reduced income households can afford less of anything anyway.
With the disruption in food distribution systems, we find highly localized mixed reports on food shortages. Further, there doesn’t seem to be a link between price increases and shortages which is concerning — if there are certain areas/households which consistently face shortages, we may be widening a systematic gap.
What else has changed about grocery shopping?
Besides purchasing lesser quantities of food, women have shifted from shopping at supermarkets or wholesale stores to local shops. Some only shop when needed, others once a week — down from the normal twice to thrice weekly trips. They also choose to go to the shops closer to their homes rather than the longer journeys they were used to, both because of COVID restrictions and rising fares in public transport. This might be good for local business in the long run but there could be larger unintended consequences if these patterns shift in the long term. For example, many women use grocery trips as the avenue to spend some time away from the house, meet other women, discuss their lives and share a support system.
These experiences highlight a larger concern over the way economic, nutrition and psychological factors are interacting with each other to heighten the complexity and incidence of households living along the poverty line in Nairobi.
COVID-19 Stories is a series brought to you by Busara, we’ll cover on the ground reports of how COVID-19 is affecting low income households in ways that are being explored less currently. Our next post in this series will focus on mobility and local transport, look out for it here.
