There have been steep increases in the prices of fruit and vegetables due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is little the Namibian Agronomic Board (NAB) can do to ease the burden on consumers as it has no control over the market price of fresh produce.

In a recent interview with Nampa, NAB’s Public Relations Officer, Auguste Fabian said globally, most fruit and vegetables are not classified as staple food crops and prices are not regulated, noting that in Namibia the prices are determined based on the market force supply and demand.

Fabian explained that fruit and vegetables are volatile, making it cumbersome to regulate the prices. He said the exorbitant domestic prices are mainly a result of low supply and high demand, particularly during off seasons, and due to high cost of production as well as trade.

“The market determines the price and not the regulator. Regulating the price of fruit and vegetables will also make it unattractive for business people to operate or invest in a business environment where market forces do not matter,” he said.

According to the Namibia Consumer Price Index released in October by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), price levels of fruit recorded inflation of 15.4 per cent in October 2021 compared to 16.1 per cent recorded in October 2020. Within this category, avocados recorded the highest inflation rate of 65.8 per cent, followed by pears at 24.8 per cent and apples at 13.1 per cent.

NAB, Fabian said, only monitors the producers’ prices through the implementation of local marketing mechanisms for agronomy and horticulture products that involve border closure periods when there is sufficient local supply of selected fruits and vegetables to ensure that producers adhere to the principle of fair pricing.

He further indicated that currently, NAB regulates the prices of cereals and wheat crop produce as Namibia’s staple foods by setting a minimum producers price per tonne in order to protect local producers from competing with cheap imported cereal, as well as to ensure that producers do not sell their cereals at a price below the production cost.

Fabian also noted that challenges faced by the board in regulating wheat and cereal include recurrent drought, pest outbreaks and high costs of production that affect local production.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency