JCTR FOOD BASKET SURVEY

JCTR FOOD BASKET SURVEY: AN UPDATE

It is commonly known that poverty manifests itself in various forms and in the same vein it is measured through a variety of ways. In this article Muweme Muweme gives an update of the Food Basket, a tool that has been developed by the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection to monitor the cost of living in Lusaka. This tool gives a striking picture of poverty in Lusaka.

The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (hereafter the Centre) has, under its Economic and Social Development Research Project, been conducting a monthly food Basket (hereafter Basket) to determine how much it costs to live or indeed survive for a family of six in Lusaka. The Basket consists of basic commodities such as mealie meal, eggs, bread, vegetables, cooking oil, tea, wash and bath soap, charcoal, etc. In January 2001, the cost of the Basket was K319,870 or approximately US $91.

SURVEY AND ITS COMPUTATION

The survey, that is the gathering of prices for the calculation of the cost of the Basket, is done in retail outlets around Lusaka city centre, Longacres, Northmead, town centre (Shoprite) and City market. From this survey of prices, the Centre compiles the total cost of the Basket. It has been done by calculating the average prices of the different commodities gathered from the various outlets.

It must be emphasised here that the Basket has included only basic commodities as mentioned above. It has not included expenses for housing, water, electricity, fuel, transport, clothing, education, health care, recreation, etc. Neither is it nutritionally balanced.

ITS PHILOSOPHY

From the middle 1970s when the Zambian economy started experiencing its decline, there has been a relentless deterioration in the living standards of the majority of the people. This situation has also involved a strong movement towards joining the poor in the traditional sense by income-earning workers, the ''new poor''. Life expectancy has steadily been declining, agriculture has been shrinking in its performance. Significant also has been the stagnation by and large in people's incomes.

In such an environment afflicted by so much hardship, many concerned people, especially those who identify themselves in one way or the other with the poor, ask the question, ''How much is being done to expose the plight of the poor and redress their situation?''

Thus the idea behind the Basket is linked to the overall objective of the Economic and Social Development Research Project of the Centre: to promote economic and social justice through exposing the plight of the poor.

The aim of the project is to gather facts through research and to use those facts to advocate change in policies and/or practices that inhibit attainment of sustainable livelihoods on the part of the majority poor Zambian people ( estimated as 80 per cent of the population).

An analysis of the needs of the majority of Zambians who live far below what is decent would reveal varied needs. Therefore one would argue that even tools that are designed to expose their plight should be all-encompassing

in capturing every aspect of their lives. These should touch especially on those aspects that are at the core of their suffering. The Centre's Food Basket, as its name implies, only focuses on the cost of food and a few other commodities such as wash and bath soap, charcoal, etc. An important question one may ask then is, ''Does this not represent a partial or distorted picture of the situation of the poor? Or is the basket a comprehensive tool for monitoring the cost of living in Lusaka?

IMPORTANCE OF INCOME

Rightly so, the concerns and needs of the poor are many and varied. However, it is important to note that income is a very significant ( even if not the only) indicator in determining people's ability to afford the Basket, have choices and enjoy general well being.

Income or the cost of the Basket for that matter gives us an indication of the degree to which the consumer is weakened in purchasing power by showing how far below the level of basic needs their incomes fall. It hints also at repercussions of that situation on the household level.

Income enables people to have access to food, clean water, food and indeed other basic needs for human survival. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report 1998, whose focus was on consumption, stated that:

''Human development is a process of enlarging people's choices. Enlarging people's choices is achieved by expanding human capabilities and functionings. At all levels of development the three essential capabilities for human development are:

· to lead long and healthy lives

· to be knowledgeable

· to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living.

If these basic capabilities are not achieved, many choices are simply not available and many opportunities remain inaccessible… Income is certainly one of the main means of expanding choices and well-being. But it is not the sum total of people's lives.''

From the above statement, one sees that to have access to all three essential capabilities for human development presupposes income and for that matter adequate income. In other words deprivation of an individual, household or community in income leads to other forms of deprivation.

Without income, one cannot send children to school, have health care, clean water, etc. In a situation where the majority of people's incomes fall far below what is adequate to meet the cost of the Basket or to have wider choices, a tool such as the Basket becomes very important for monitoring cost of living trends.

Expenditure patterns for a huge part of the population in Zambia reveal that they have very limited choice. That is, their earnings cannot allow them to be flexible in spending on human and other household necessities.

In Zambia about 75% and 63% of the monthly income for the rural and urban populations respectively goes to food expenses. Though the percentage share of income on food expenses is high, it does not imply that households have adequate and nutritionally balanced food to eat. It only means that out of the meagre incomes people earn, a huge proportion goes to food.

This leaves them with little or no income to spend on health, education, clean water, etc. Economists have suggested the proportion of the total expenditure spent by families on food as an indicator of poverty. Households spending more than 35 per cent of their total expenditure on food could be deemed to be poor.

The above scenario underscores the need for a monitoring tool that focuses on highlighting cost of living trends, though inadequate as tool for determining overall well being. The Zambian situation presents itself with the need to constantly monitor the trends in the cost of living or determine to what extent people's choices are being restricted by their inadequate income.

ITS USEFULNESS

The Basket, as already mentioned, has been highlighting every month (since 1996) how much it costs to meet minimum basic requirements for a family of six in Lusaka. Many organisations and individuals have found the basket appealing and extremely useful. It is faxed and e-mailed to dozens of media, government and NGO offices, etc.

Trade unions in their quest to improve the living conditions of their members have used the Basket as a point of reference to inform negotiations from a factual perspective on how much the minimum wage for an employee should be. As matter of fact, there has even been an instance where the Centre has been called upon to play the role of conciliator in wage negotiations between employers and employees through their union.

The role of workers' remittances (money remitted back home by people working abroad) to an economy such as ours is very important. Such money is an indirect resource mobilisation in the local economy that is necessary for development. Through our web site page (www.jctr.org.zm), we have been able to highlight every month the cost of the Basket, sending the message around the world.

This has been helpful information to workers, students, etc., in giving a picture of the trends in cost of living. It informs, in the case of workers outside the country, how much they are supposed to send back home to assist their families. For students, the information has been useful in poverty research papers on Zambia.

Some international organisations working in Zambia in the field of development and related areas have used the Basket to supplement other tools in measuring levels of poverty in the country.

Foreign offices, diplomatic missions and others have applied the Basket in determining the cost of living in Lusaka in order to know how much they should pay their local employees and set adequate conditions of service. Individuals employing domestic workers have also used the Basket for the same purpose.

It is also important to note that the Basket has had and continues to have a very strong appeal to the local media, both private and state controlled. This has also contributed to its very wide circulation. State television regularly features it.

The Basket can be seen also as a pointer to the levels of inflation prevailing in a particular month as price changes tend to be a function, but not the only one, of inflation.

CRITIQUE OF THE BASKET

One of the critiques against the Centre's Basket has been that it is only being done in Lusaka's City Centre. This may not represent a full picture of the actual situation in the country.

This is indeed true as one of our surveys revealed. In the year 1999, a comparative study was conducted by the Centre that looked at the cost of various food commodities in Lusaka's low, medium and high density locations. The study was meant to assess the factors behind price differences of the same commodities in different locations of the city.

The study's findings revealed that prices vary from one location to another depending on such factors as the distance involved in transportation of goods from place of production to the final consumer as well as the purchasing power of the consumer communities.

That intra-town variations in the price of commodities could be observed may lead us into concluding that the same factors for intra-town variations could also account for inter-town or regional variation in the cost of the Basket. This means that places situated near production centres could have cheaper prices than those far away.

The other point to note, perhaps most important, is the fact that the Basket in its current composition form cannot be transposed to apply to other regions. There is need before such an undertaking is done to pay attention to the kind of commodities most in use in that particular region. This could also present difficulties in trying to compare the cost of the basket across regions.

It is also important to note that the composition of the Basket has not been reflective of the requirements of a nutritionally balanced diet. If the Basket were to be composed in such a way that nutrition is taken care of, then more foodstuffs would necessarily need to be added to it.

LOOKING AHEAD

Late in 2000, the Centre held a brainstorming session to review the Basket, mainly in terms of its composition and areas of study. The results of that session were that there was need to carry out some comparative studies to discover the degree to which the cost of the Basket varies regionally or between rural and urban. This could be done bearing in mind the kind of commodities most in use in that region or rural area.

Beginning January 2001, the Basket will run under the heading ''JCTR Food Basket: Cost of Living Survey" and will have Food Basket (in its original format), the Cost of Non-food items (which will include, education, health, housing, transport electricity, etc.) and Comparative Salary figures as sub headings. (See the new format of the survey on the next page). In addition, there will occasionally be a highlight of supplementary items for nutrition such as beans, kapenta, milk, etc. These are subset items of the Basket.

The cost for the non-food items will be measured through gathering monthly prices as applicable around Lusaka: hospitals/clinics, schools, houses, etc. That of supplementary food items on nutrition will mainly be from Soweto City market and some other places the Centre has traditionally surveyed.

CONSISTENCY

There is not going to be any significant departure from the way the survey has been conducted. The slight changes in the format of the Basket were made bearing in mind the need for consistency in the overall reporting done since 1996. This is important for purposes of future research and comparison.

The Basket, will be subject to periodic reviews as applicable but caution will always be exercised to ensure that it does not depart significantly from its original format. Alternatively, new aspects will be introduced alongside the old format as the case was with recent changes. (See next page)

The survey will also continue to be as scientific as possible, by consistently collecting data from the same sample areas. We hope that the Basket will continue to be as useful as it has been in the past. In this way it can continue to contribute to the Centre's objective of promoting social justice by highlighting the plight of the poor in Zambia. We welcome readers' suggestions for future improvements.

Muweme K. Muweme

JCTR Staff

Lusaka

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